Dual-use deceptions
{Post by See-Dubya}
A French company, Cryostar, pled guilty this week to a plot to smuggle cryogenic pumps from the U.S. into Iran. The pumps were manufactured by a U.S. corporation called Ebara, which pled guilty in 2004, and sent to Cryostar in France, who then changed the labeling and sold them to another French company, which sent them on to Tehran. Originally it was feared that the pumps were destined for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, but our government later learned they were going into a new offshore petrochemical station.
That story could have been much worse, but it’s frightening how many people around the world were in on this scheme and willing to run sensitive technology around our blockade of Iran. Bill Gertz, at that second link, suggests that some of the brass of Ebara’s parent company in Japan knew about the deception as well.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, an American citizen has been charged with running dual use electronic switches–used in nuclear detonators– into Pakistan:
[Marisa] Sketo was arrested in November nearly four years ago after Cape Town businessman Asher Karni was arrested on the same charge in the US.
It was alleged Sketo had worked with Karni, who pleaded guilty in the US Federal court and who was sentenced to three years in prison.
During Karni’s trial it had emerged he had imported triggered spark gaps, which have medical applications but may also be used to detonate bombs.
He said they were going to be used in a Johannesburg hospital in a machine that helped break down kidney stones but Karni passed the spark gaps on to Pakistan.
According to Sketo’s charge sheet, between June and November 2003, she had “intentionally and unlawfully imported and exported” 66 triggered spark gaps while working for a Green Point company owned by Karni.
Again, this is an ongoing story that doesn’t get much press; the Pakistani businessman who was importing these devices is a fugitive at large. And again, it amazes me the risks these fools take to sell dangerous munitions to untrustworthy regimes.
Lenin is supposed to have said* that “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them”. He may have gotten the “we” wrong–Communism never quite got the job done– but the rope market is going strong.
Previously: A.Q. Khan hints Pak government behind his nuclear bazaar.
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*I suspect this may be apocryphal, like the famous Edmund Burke quote about good men doing nothing.
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The rope analogy is spot on
From the INT article:
If Mhlanga can see this, why can’t the dollar-blinded Americans and Westerners who traffic in these sensitive devices? Is money that important to them, that they would willingly risk the lives of their fellow citizens and the security of their nation just to make a fast, dirty buck?
Money is like grease, helping the most sticky high-friction challenge work with ease.
Thank God for the New Media. Good people doing great things.
There are large numbers of people out there (e.g. the Palestinians) who would love nothing more than to see a nuclear 9/11 hit this country. The world has on its dancing shoes . . .
Here is another quote, from Trotsky, that may also be applicable:
Feel free to substitute for the word “war” above any manner of international unpleasantness.
Capitalists - they’ll sell you the nuke with which you bomb them.
In an earlier time she wouldn’t have to worry about her business, but about her neck. She should spend some time behind bars.
What America needs is a person in charge that might authorized a strike force that would make this type of black market very dangerous to your health(with real guns and bullets). Mexico has such a person they call him President. We might try the same such in America. This strike force might also eliminate known terrorist consentrations. If not too offensive to Muslim Wahhabists we might call such action the war on terrror. And here’s a good scare all: your either with us or your against us.
Bless the Ohio boats & those who serve on them. Payback is a bitch.
hadsil, these are not Capitalists, they are Merchantilists. That may seem like an esoteric difference but it is a very important distinction. Unless you are self employed (yourself a Capitalist) or on welfare then you work for a Capitalist or Capitalist group (think coroporation). A Capitalist invests money and sweat into providing something to the marketplace that the public wants and does so at a price that the public accepts while making a net profit for himself. A Capitalist does it while following the law. A Mechantilist finds the law inconvenient except when using it to fend off competitors. Much like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland getting an outrageous subsidy for themselves while getting an onerous tariff placed on imported, competitive goods from overseas (think ethanol).
A couple weeks ago, some 70 pounds of depleted uranium was unearthed at a FARC hideout in Colombia, based on information from dead FARC chieftain Raul Reyes’ computer. It was buried in a hole in the ground and supposedly belonged to some shady character in Bogota named something like Belasario. When the soldiers took it out of the ground, the bars were all stamped DEPLETED URANIUM RADIOACTIVE in English. Now, why would something be stamped in English and not Spanish or French or Russian? I think it’s a sign that the depleted uranium was taken from a nuclear plant in the US and hauled down to Colombia and sold to the FARC. Bill Richardson, an ex-energy secretary, from the state of Los Alamos, flew down to Bogota about two weeks ago. He said he was trying to negotiate the release of hostages. Was his real mission to find out what the Colombians knew, maybe about a security breach on his watch? Only the FARC computer knows. But something’s awfully fishy.
“A United States citizen suspected of smuggling components of weapons of mass destruction between South Africa and Pakistan”
um, can we do sumtin’ about getting that 4th word there changed?
/jus’ askin’ …
I went outside when the ice cream truck came by to buy a Fat Boy, and the Pakistani running the thing told me he had a Fat Man instead…
(Ok, I made that up…)