The Empire's Bagman - Frank Wisner Jr

[Keith Millea]

February 2, 2011

Frank Wisner in Cairo

The Empire's Bagman

By VIJAY PRASHAD
From inside the bowels of Washington's power elite, Frank Wisner emerges, briefcase in hand. He has met the President, but he is not his envoy. He represents the United States, but is not the Ambassador. What is in his briefcase is his experience: it includes his long career as bagman of Empire, and as bucket-boy for Capital. Pulling himself away from the Georgetown cocktail parties and the Langley Power-point briefings, Wisner finds his way to the Heliopolis cocktail parties and to the hushed conferences in Kasr al-Ittihadiya. Mubarak (age 82) greets Wisner (age 72), as these elders confer on the way forward for a country whose majority is under thirty.

Obama came to Cairo in 2009, and said, "America does not presume to know what is best for everyone." Those words should have been cast in gold and placed in the portico of the White House. Instead, they drift like wisps in the wind, occasionally sighted for propaganda purposes, but in a time of crisis, hidden behind the clouds of imperial interests (or those of Tel Aviv). America presumes to know, and presumes to have a say equivalent to those of the millions who have thronged Egypt's squares, streets and television sets (one forgets about the protests of the latter, too tired to get to the square, nursing sick children or adults, a bit fearful, but no less given over to anger at the regime).

The Republicans have their own ghouls, people like James Baker, who are plucked out for tasks that require the greatest delicacy. They are like diplomatic hit-men, who are not sown up by too much belief in the values of democracy and freedom, but to the imperatives of "stability" and Empire. The Democratic bench is lighter now, as the immense bulk of Richard Holbrooke has departed for other diplomatic assignments. He had been given charge of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he found little traction. The Taliban could not be cowered, and nor would the Pakistani military. Holbrooke had much easier times in the Balkans, where, according to Diana Johnstone, he instigated the conflict by refusing the road of peace. Wisner comes out of the same nest as Holbrooke. He is the Democrat's version of James Baker, but without the pretend gravity of the Texan.

Wisner has a long lineage in the CIA family. His father, Frank Sr., helped overthrow Arbenz of Guatemala (1954) and Mossadeq of Iran (1953), before he was undone in mysterious circumstances in 1965. Frank Jr. is well known around Langley, with a career in the Defense and State Departments along with ambassadorial service in Egypt, the Philippines, and then India. In each of these places Wisner insinuated himself into the social and military branches of the power elite. He became their spokesperson. Wisner and Mubarak became close friends when he was in country (1986-1991), and many credit this friendship (and military aid) with Egypt's support of the US in the 1991 Gulf War. Not once did the US provide a criticism of Egypt's human rights record. As Human Rights Watch put it, the George H. W. Bush regime "refrained from any public expression of concern about human rights violations in Egypt." Instead, military aid increased, and the torture system continued. The moral turpitude (bad guys, aka the Muslim Brotherhood and democracy advocates need to be tortured) and the torture apparatus set up the system for the regime followed by Bush's son, George W. after 911, with the extraordinary rendition programs to these very Egyptian prisons. Wisner might be considered the architect of the framework for this policy.

Wisner remained loyal to Mubarak. In 2005, he celebrated the Egyptian (s)election (Mubarak "won" with 88.6% of the vote). It was a "historic day" he said, and went further, "There were no instances of repression; there wasn't heavy police presence on the streets. The atmosphere was not one of police intimidation." This is quite the opposite of what came out from election observers, human rights organizations and bloggers such as Karee Suleiman and Hossam el-Hamalawy. The Democratic and Republican ghouls came together in the James Baker Institute's working group on the Middle East. Wisner joined the Baker Institute's head Edward Djerejian and others to produce a report in 2003 that offers us a tasty statement, "Achieving security and stability in the Middle East will be made more difficult by the fact that short-term necessities will seem to contradict long-term goals." If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a "Washington Middle East hand" told The Cable, "[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak." But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside.

I first wrote about Wisner in 1997 when he joined the board of directors of Enron Corporation. Where Wisner had been, to Manila and New Delhi, Enron followed. As one of his staffers said, "if anybody asked the CIA to help promote US business in India, it was probably Frank." Without the CIA and the muscle of the US government, it is unlikely that the Subic Bay power station deal or the Dabhol deal would have gone to Enron. Here Wisner followed James Baker, who was hired by Enron to help it gain access to the Shuaiba power plant in Kuwait. Nor is he different from Holbrooke, who was in the upper circle of Credit Suisse First Boston, Lehman Brothers, Perseus and the American International Group. They used the full power of the US state to push the private interests of their firms, and then made money for themselves. This is the close nexus of Capital and Empire, and Wisner is the hinge between them.

One wonders at the tenor of the official cables coming from Cairo to Washington. Ambassador Margaret Scobey, a career official, has been once more sidelined. The first time was over rendition. She is known to have opposed the tenor of it, and had spoken on behalf of Ayman Nour and others. This time Obama did an end run around her, sending Wisner. Scobey went to visit El-Baradei. Similar treatment was meted out to Ambassador Anne Patterson in Islamabad. Her brief was narrowed by Holbrooke's appointment. What must these women in senior places think, that when a crisis erupts, they are set-aside for the men of Washington?

Wisner urged Mubarak to concede. It is not enough. More is being asked for. Today, Mubarak's supporters have come out with bats in hand, ready for a fight. This has probably also been sanctioned in that private meeting. It is what one expects of Empire's bagman.

Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His most recent book, The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, won the Muzaffar Ahmad Book Prize for 2009. The Swedish and French editions are just out. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu

http://www.counterpunch.org/

[Jan Klimkowski]

Well - Holbrooke's gone to meet his Maker....

[Keith Millea]

Well - Holbrooke's gone to meet his Maker....

It sounds like his "Maker" already has a job waiting for him. :pope:

Richard Holbrooke has departed for other diplomatic assignments.

[Jan Klimkowski]

The Empire's Bagman says Mubarak must stay.

5 February 2011 Last updated at 19:59

Egypt unrest: Hosni Mubarak must stay - US envoy

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak "must stay in office" during a power transition, a US special envoy says.

Frank Wisner was speaking as protesters kept up their demands for Mr Mubarak to step down immediately.

Mr Mubarak has pledged to quit in September. Earlier, he replaced the entire politburo of his ruling party, including his son Gamal.

President Barack Obama has urged Mr Mubarak to "make the right decision" and to begin the transition "now".

The US state department has refused to comment on Mr Wisner's remarks, in which he also hailed the Egyptian ruling party resignations.

Hossam Badrawi, a reformer and top physician, took the post of head of the policies committee, held by Gamal, and that of secretary-general.

Protesters still occupy Cairo's Tahrir Square, but their numbers have fallen from Friday's huge rally.

But the BBC's Yolande Knell in Cairo says the city is still remarkably quiet 12 days after the protests began as people wait to see what happens next.

'Critical' leadership

Mr Wisner, a former ambassador in Egypt, was sent by President Obama to Cairo on Monday, apparently to urge Mr Mubarak to announce his departure.

"We need to get a national consensus around the pre-conditions for the next step forward. The president must stay in office to steer those changes," he told the Munich Security Conference.

"I believe that President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical - it's his chance to write his own legacy.

"He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country, this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward."

On Friday Mr Obama urged the Egyptian president to make the "right decision", without explicitly saying he should step down.

The resignation of leading officials of the ruling National Democratic Party was announced on state TV.

"The members of the executive committee resigned from their posts. It was decided to name Hossam Badrawi secretary general of the party," it said.

Secretary-General Safwat al-Sharif, a highly unpopular figure for the protesters, lost his post.

A state-owned TV report said President Mubarak, as party leader, had accepted the resignations.

The BBC's John Leyne in Cairo says that while the new secretary-general, Dr Badrawi, is seen as a liberal he is still close to the ruling family, and this is another indication of the turmoil in the ruling elite.

Mr Mubarak has already aid he will not stand for re-election as Egypt's president in September, but insists he must stay until then to prevent chaos in the country. Protesters are demanding that he goes immediately.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12374753

[Magda Hassan]

Revealed: US envoy's business link to Egypt

Obama scrambles to limit damage after Frank Wisner makes robust call for Mubarak to remain in place as leader.
By Robert Fisk in Cairo

Monday, 7 February 2011

EPA
Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year "career" diplomat ? in otherwords, he was not a political appointee

Frank Wisner, President Barack Obama's envoy to Cairo who infuriated the White House this weekend by urging Hosni Mubarak to remain President of Egypt, works for a New York and Washington law firm which works for the dictator's own Egyptian government.
Mr Wisner's astonishing remarks "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical: it's his opportunity to write his own legacy" shocked the democratic opposition in Egypt and called into question Mr Obama's judgement, as well as that of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The US State Department and Mr Wisner himself have now both claimed that his remarks were made in a "personal capacity". But there is nothing "personal" about Mr Wisner's connections with the litigation firm Patton Boggs, which openly boasts that it advises "the Egyptian military, the Egyptian Economic Development Agency, and has handled arbitrations and litigation on the [Mubarak] government's behalf in Europe and the US". Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.
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Mr Wisner is a retired State Department 36-year career diplomat he served as US ambassador to Egypt, Zambia, the Philippines and India under eight American presidents. In other words, he was not a political appointee. But it is inconceivable Hillary Clinton did not know of his employment by a company that works for the very dictator which Mr Wisner now defends in the face of a massive democratic opposition in Egypt.
So why on earth was he sent to talk to Mubarak, who is in effect a client of Mr Wisner's current employers?
Patton Boggs states that its attorneys "represent some of the leading Egyptian commercial families and their companies" and "have been involved in oil and gas and telecommunications infrastructure projects on their behalf". One of its partners served as chairman of the US-Egyptian Chamber of Commerce promoting foreign investment in the Egyptian economy. The company has also managed contractor disputes in military-sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act. Washington gives around $1.3bn (£800m) a year to the Egyptian military.
Mr Wisner joined Patton Boggs almost two years ago more than enough time for both the White House and the State Department to learn of his company's intimate connections with the Mubarak regime. The New York Times ran a glowing profile of Mr Wisner in its pages two weeks ago but mysteriously did not mention his ties to Egypt.
Nicholas Noe, an American political researcher now based in Beirut, has spent weeks investigating Mr Wisner's links to Patton Boggs. Mr Noe is also a former researcher for Hillary Clinton and questions the implications of his discoveries.
"The key problem with Wisner being sent to Cairo at the behest of Hillary," he says, "is the conflict-of-interest aspect... More than this, the idea that the US is now subcontracting or 'privatising' crisis management is another problem. Do the US lack diplomats?
"Even in past examples where presidents have sent someone 'respected' or 'close' to a foreign leader in order to lubricate an exit," Mr Noe adds, "the envoys in question were not actually paid by the leader they were supposed to squeeze out!"
Patton Boggs maintains an "affiliate relationship" with Zaki Hashem, one of Egypt's most prominent legal firms. It was founded in 1953 and Zaki Hashem himself was a cabinet minister under Mubarak's predecessor, President Anwar Sadat, and later became head of the Egyptian Society for International Law.
By a further remarkable irony, one of Zaki Hashem's senior advisers was Nabil al-Araby, one of the 25 leading Egyptian personalities just chosen by the protesters in Tahrir Square to demand the overthrow of Mubarak. Nabil al-Araby, a former member of the UN's International Law Commission, told me yesterday that he ended his connection with Zaki Hashem three years ago and had "no idea" why Mr Wisner had come out in support of Mubarak's continued rule. He himself believed it was essential Mubarak make a dignified but immediate exit. "The head must go," he said.
When Frank Wisner joined Patton Boggs in March 2009, the company described him as "one of the nation's most respected diplomats" who would provide clients with "strategic global advice concerning business, politics and international law". The firm stated specifically that "it looks to Ambassador Wisner to use his expertise in the Middle East and India to assist its American and international clients."
Stuart Pape, managing partner at Patton Boggs, said at the time that "it is a real coup for the firm to have Ambassador Wisner one of the most experienced and highly regarded diplomats join our ranks... His in-depth knowledge of global politics and the international financial world is a huge asset for our clients."
We still do not know exactly what kind of "expertise" he has bestowed upon the dictator of Egypt. But his remarks at the weekend leave no room to doubt he advised the old man to cling on to power for a few more months. The vast network of companies with family connections to Mubarak's regime is, of course, one of the targets of the pro-democracy demonstrators in Egypt.
A spokesman for the State Department said he "presumed" Mrs Clinton knew of Mr Wisner's employment by Patton Boggs and the firm's links with the Mubarak government, but refused to comment on any conflict of interest for the envoy. A spokesman for Patton Boggs could not be reached yesterday.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...06329.html

[Jan Klimkowski]

It looks increasingly as if smooth-talking frontman Obama is simply being played by the people who really run things...