Monday, June 30, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Sorry for the Delay
I have been horribly busy with packing and traveling about and have been just too tired to post anything worthwhile. Give me a couple of days and I will be back with some nonsense or another.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Big Fraud in the Far Abroad, Part XI: The End
Sorry for the long gap between Part X and this, the final installment in the Long Saga. This post provides a bit of a look at the aftermath of the arrest of Long and AC, and some reflections on what it all meant. Boring stuff, no doubt, but it's the best I can do on just ten years' notice.
As FBI and STATE DS agents told me subsequently, Long was taken from the embassy to the airport, allowed to change clothes, and put on a flight with escort to London. British authorities helped transfer her and "her party" to a flight to Washington DC. Long behaved well, making no attempt to run or create a scene. One agent who flew with her the whole way told me that she never said a word, sat perfectly still, not eating or drinking; he couldn't recall her ever going to the bathroom. She sat most of the flight eyes closed, lost in her thoughts. On arrival at Dulles airport, she was escorted to a magistrate in a small office at the airport, where she was formally charged with a long list of crimes. She said nothing. She was put into a van and driven to a holding facility in Virginia. Only during that portion of the trip did she say anything since leaving Colombo nearly 24 hours earlier. She turned to an agent and said, "This is probably not good for my career. This is probably the end of my career."
One of the FBI agents who had interrogated her that night in the Embassy told me he had never seen anybody quite like her. She had an answer for everything, replied very quickly and smoothly with no hesitation, and despite the hours of interrogation, kept her storyline consistent. She never lost her cool. He told me, "Somebody trained her very well." I remember saying, "It wasn't us."
AC, on the other hand, proved a very different guest of the feds. I saw the pictures of the raid on his house, and how he was taken while standing in the doorway. AC, according to one agent who was there, was terrified, shaking visibly, and absolutely incredulous that he was being arrested. He quickly gave up his denials of wrong-doing when presented the testimony of the young marine guard who had used my desk to have sex with Long. He became furious upon hearing that he was not the only one in the AC-Long household having sex in the Chancery after hours, and began spilling the details of the operation, blaming it all on Long.
The feds also raided the soon-to-open "Lemongrass" Vietnamese restaurant in Medford, Oregon and found a large number of illegal aliens living on the grounds in squalid conditions. Mostly Vietnamese, but also Indian and Sri Lankan, they had been brought there by Long and AC to help set up and operate the restaurant. (Note: I think that the restaurant is now a Thai restaurant.) The Los Angeles-based Vietnamese madam was arrested and many girls and women taken out of her brothels. The Virginia-based Iranian and his mistress, Long's daughter, were also arrested. The nascent limo operation in Colorado was shut down. There were other arrests, too--you can Google for the details.
In the end, neither Long nor AC got the 15-20 years prosecutors had assured us would be the punishment. I believe they were sentenced to six and seven years, respectively, and both were released after about four and half years. The case never went to trial, and Long and AC agreed to a deal for reduced sentences in exchange for a complete accounting of their activities and the forfeiture of all their assets--including Long's State pension and AC's Marine Corps pension. As part of the deal, the daughter in Virginia was allowed to keep her townhouse in exchange for taking on the care of the little handicapped girl, Zu. For what it's worth, and I told this to the prosecutors, I do not believe that Long gave up the full extent of her activities, and am convinced to this day that she hid money in Vietnam.
When investigators began looking at AC's and Long's household effects, they found gold, precious stones, antiques, and cash, stuffed and sewn into sofas and mattresses. They also found that the State Department Credit Union is not exactly run by financial geniuses. The thieving duo ran some $3 million through their accounts there without ever triggering some sort of an alert.
Subsequent to her release from prison, Long wrote a semi-ficitional autobiography which you can find on Amazon. I have no intention of reading it much less buying it. People who have read it have told me--and I don't know how accurate this is--that she barely touches on the visa scandal and does not mention the harm she caused other people and the country, the country that took her in as a refugee, in her bid to get rich.
Now, back to me.
I, of course, was interviewed by the investigators and by the State IG. Just about everything I had to say or knew about the case I already had passed to the investigators. The IG gave me grief for a bit about the fraudulent representation vouchers which I had signed knowing that they were fraudulent. I showed them the memos I had written to DS each and every time I signed one, but the IG argued that DS did not have the authority to approve the signing of fake vouchers. They fought among themselves; I stayed out of it. I took the opportunity to grill DS on whether I ever had been a suspect in the investigation, and was told, "No." One DS agent, however, did mention that it had struck DS as odd that the Ambassador would try to keep me out of the investigation. My views on that were well-known, and I did not want to vent all over again. I did, however, ask whether anything would be done to BS for spilling his guts on a confidential investigation and for trying to malign me. DS agents said that BS had been reprimanded by the head of DS, and that "the decision had been made to leave it at that."
To paraphrase Long, this scandal did not do good things for my career. No matter how much I explained what had happened, my name was associated with something not kosher in Colombo. You must remember that the Department, when it comes to personnel decisions, operates largely on "corridor reputation," i.e., gossip, and half-information. I already had a reputation of being a trouble-maker and for being, let's say, somewhat more open about my views than is good for a career bureaucrat--you can Google that, too. I, in particular, had had run-ins with certain senior people in personnel (HR) and in the Consular bureau (CA). Some of them made a half-hearted effort to smear me with the scandal, but that did not go very far. I wrote a memo to CA and HR laying out how I thought they had let down the embassy and the Foreign Service; that embassies have to rely on the people provided by the Department system. In addition, I noted that CA had spent years trying to get Ambassadors and DCMs out of the visa process, insisting that it was a matter solely for consular officers; I noted that had I been able to review the visa issuances, I would have noticed that we were giving visas to people from outside of our consular jurisdiction. They sort of left me alone after that, at least on the official level, although, as I said, the rumors and gossip continued. The whole thing left me with a very bad taste in the mouth about the Foreign Service, and about how blowhards like BS can get away with bad stuff.
At the time I also was horrified that these two creeps had managed to blow a huge whole in our elaborate visa issuing system. I kept thinking what if they didn't just let in cooks, maids, and prostitutes? What other sorts of folks availed themselves of AC's facile visa stamp? In retrospect, of course, it all seems so penny-ante, so quaint, almost. We now have a misadministration in Washington that de facto has obliterated our immigration system in the continuing pursuit of irrevocably changing the very nature of our country. The southern border, for all intents, has been erased, and the US government is cooperating with the governments of Central America and Mexico in the sending of tens-of-thousands of illegal aliens in to the US with the full intention of having these people cared for by the American taxpayer and becoming Democrat voters. We are being told by spokesmen for Honduras, for example, and the always reliable New York Times, that suddenly the drug violence is so bad that tens-of-thousands of children are fleeing for the safety of the US and that the US has the responsibility to care for these "children" and make sure they are reunited with their families--reunited, that is, in the USA. All the talk about amnesty and the provision of generous federal benefits, of course, has nothing to do with this sudden surge.
What Obama and Holder have done makes the crimes of Long and AC look like child's play.
As FBI and STATE DS agents told me subsequently, Long was taken from the embassy to the airport, allowed to change clothes, and put on a flight with escort to London. British authorities helped transfer her and "her party" to a flight to Washington DC. Long behaved well, making no attempt to run or create a scene. One agent who flew with her the whole way told me that she never said a word, sat perfectly still, not eating or drinking; he couldn't recall her ever going to the bathroom. She sat most of the flight eyes closed, lost in her thoughts. On arrival at Dulles airport, she was escorted to a magistrate in a small office at the airport, where she was formally charged with a long list of crimes. She said nothing. She was put into a van and driven to a holding facility in Virginia. Only during that portion of the trip did she say anything since leaving Colombo nearly 24 hours earlier. She turned to an agent and said, "This is probably not good for my career. This is probably the end of my career."
One of the FBI agents who had interrogated her that night in the Embassy told me he had never seen anybody quite like her. She had an answer for everything, replied very quickly and smoothly with no hesitation, and despite the hours of interrogation, kept her storyline consistent. She never lost her cool. He told me, "Somebody trained her very well." I remember saying, "It wasn't us."
AC, on the other hand, proved a very different guest of the feds. I saw the pictures of the raid on his house, and how he was taken while standing in the doorway. AC, according to one agent who was there, was terrified, shaking visibly, and absolutely incredulous that he was being arrested. He quickly gave up his denials of wrong-doing when presented the testimony of the young marine guard who had used my desk to have sex with Long. He became furious upon hearing that he was not the only one in the AC-Long household having sex in the Chancery after hours, and began spilling the details of the operation, blaming it all on Long.
The feds also raided the soon-to-open "Lemongrass" Vietnamese restaurant in Medford, Oregon and found a large number of illegal aliens living on the grounds in squalid conditions. Mostly Vietnamese, but also Indian and Sri Lankan, they had been brought there by Long and AC to help set up and operate the restaurant. (Note: I think that the restaurant is now a Thai restaurant.) The Los Angeles-based Vietnamese madam was arrested and many girls and women taken out of her brothels. The Virginia-based Iranian and his mistress, Long's daughter, were also arrested. The nascent limo operation in Colorado was shut down. There were other arrests, too--you can Google for the details.
In the end, neither Long nor AC got the 15-20 years prosecutors had assured us would be the punishment. I believe they were sentenced to six and seven years, respectively, and both were released after about four and half years. The case never went to trial, and Long and AC agreed to a deal for reduced sentences in exchange for a complete accounting of their activities and the forfeiture of all their assets--including Long's State pension and AC's Marine Corps pension. As part of the deal, the daughter in Virginia was allowed to keep her townhouse in exchange for taking on the care of the little handicapped girl, Zu. For what it's worth, and I told this to the prosecutors, I do not believe that Long gave up the full extent of her activities, and am convinced to this day that she hid money in Vietnam.
When investigators began looking at AC's and Long's household effects, they found gold, precious stones, antiques, and cash, stuffed and sewn into sofas and mattresses. They also found that the State Department Credit Union is not exactly run by financial geniuses. The thieving duo ran some $3 million through their accounts there without ever triggering some sort of an alert.
Subsequent to her release from prison, Long wrote a semi-ficitional autobiography which you can find on Amazon. I have no intention of reading it much less buying it. People who have read it have told me--and I don't know how accurate this is--that she barely touches on the visa scandal and does not mention the harm she caused other people and the country, the country that took her in as a refugee, in her bid to get rich.
Now, back to me.
I, of course, was interviewed by the investigators and by the State IG. Just about everything I had to say or knew about the case I already had passed to the investigators. The IG gave me grief for a bit about the fraudulent representation vouchers which I had signed knowing that they were fraudulent. I showed them the memos I had written to DS each and every time I signed one, but the IG argued that DS did not have the authority to approve the signing of fake vouchers. They fought among themselves; I stayed out of it. I took the opportunity to grill DS on whether I ever had been a suspect in the investigation, and was told, "No." One DS agent, however, did mention that it had struck DS as odd that the Ambassador would try to keep me out of the investigation. My views on that were well-known, and I did not want to vent all over again. I did, however, ask whether anything would be done to BS for spilling his guts on a confidential investigation and for trying to malign me. DS agents said that BS had been reprimanded by the head of DS, and that "the decision had been made to leave it at that."
To paraphrase Long, this scandal did not do good things for my career. No matter how much I explained what had happened, my name was associated with something not kosher in Colombo. You must remember that the Department, when it comes to personnel decisions, operates largely on "corridor reputation," i.e., gossip, and half-information. I already had a reputation of being a trouble-maker and for being, let's say, somewhat more open about my views than is good for a career bureaucrat--you can Google that, too. I, in particular, had had run-ins with certain senior people in personnel (HR) and in the Consular bureau (CA). Some of them made a half-hearted effort to smear me with the scandal, but that did not go very far. I wrote a memo to CA and HR laying out how I thought they had let down the embassy and the Foreign Service; that embassies have to rely on the people provided by the Department system. In addition, I noted that CA had spent years trying to get Ambassadors and DCMs out of the visa process, insisting that it was a matter solely for consular officers; I noted that had I been able to review the visa issuances, I would have noticed that we were giving visas to people from outside of our consular jurisdiction. They sort of left me alone after that, at least on the official level, although, as I said, the rumors and gossip continued. The whole thing left me with a very bad taste in the mouth about the Foreign Service, and about how blowhards like BS can get away with bad stuff.
At the time I also was horrified that these two creeps had managed to blow a huge whole in our elaborate visa issuing system. I kept thinking what if they didn't just let in cooks, maids, and prostitutes? What other sorts of folks availed themselves of AC's facile visa stamp? In retrospect, of course, it all seems so penny-ante, so quaint, almost. We now have a misadministration in Washington that de facto has obliterated our immigration system in the continuing pursuit of irrevocably changing the very nature of our country. The southern border, for all intents, has been erased, and the US government is cooperating with the governments of Central America and Mexico in the sending of tens-of-thousands of illegal aliens in to the US with the full intention of having these people cared for by the American taxpayer and becoming Democrat voters. We are being told by spokesmen for Honduras, for example, and the always reliable New York Times, that suddenly the drug violence is so bad that tens-of-thousands of children are fleeing for the safety of the US and that the US has the responsibility to care for these "children" and make sure they are reunited with their families--reunited, that is, in the USA. All the talk about amnesty and the provision of generous federal benefits, of course, has nothing to do with this sudden surge.
What Obama and Holder have done makes the crimes of Long and AC look like child's play.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Collapse--Part II, The Rise of the Muslim Murder Machine
We have no foreign policy. We have vacuous speeches, hashtags, retreat, surrender, don't care, and "hope you're good and not bad," instead. An arc of insanity now prevails from Nigeria to Pakistan via the Middle East. The Great Muslim Murder Machine (M3) has gone into high gear driven by the totalitarian fanaticism of its followers and the weakness and cowardliness of its nominal rivals. We see what a post-USA world looks like.
A perusing of my archives will show the many, many postings I have about M3. My point throughout has been that Islam is not a religion like the others; the Jihadis and their M3 are followers of a totalitarian creed which far from being a "religion of peace" (the stupidest meme to come from the Bush administration) is a cult of death and slavery, of total submission. This is a "religion" that has undergone no enlightenment, and what reformation has taken place has pushed it closer to its 7th century origins in the Arabian peninsula. It treats women like garbage, has a uncompromising severe sexual code, has no compunction about killing anybody who transgresses that code especially women and gay men--although homosexual practices and pedophilia are rampant throughout the Muslim world--and sees Jews and Christians as prime targets for forced conversion, kidnapping, enslavement, other forms of subjugation, and murder. I should note that if Jews and Christians are not immediately available, M3 is willing to kill fellow Muslims, as we see, for example, right now in Syria and Iraq.
Tolerance is not a Muslim concept. Islam is the enemy of tolerance--not just the mythical "radical" Islam, but also straightforward everyday vanilla Islam is an enemy of tolerance.
If you go to a Muslim country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified; if Muslims come to your country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified. As I have said many times (here for example), try to build a church or a synagogue in Saudi Arabia, not possible; try to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in your home town, not possible.
This creed hates science and education; it hates and fears women; it wages war on freedom, joy and happiness. Islam seeks to make its subjects ignorant and brutish, and succeeds quite well at doing that--I admit, it does share that objective with modern progressivism. You see, Muslims and "liberals" do have something in common: the pursuit of ignorance.
For all its bravado, gunpowder, and chest-beating Islam is a cowardly and weak creed. It cannot stand debate; it fears having its tenets quoted back to it by non-believers; it invents its history because its real history is too horrible to contemplate; it can point to almost nothing but conquest, death and destruction as its achievements. M3 is a cowardly apparatus, feeding on the weak.
This Muslim Murder Machine is far from invincible, it can be defeated. I wrote long ago when discussing the SEALs' killing of Bin Ladin,
Islam can only defeat the West when the West first defeats itself. When Western leaders assume that our constitutions and legal codes are suicide notes, that Islam is just another religion, that 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, the West loses. When the West refuses to stand up and tell the Muslim world, "We are better than you are. You should learn from us, but meanwhile we are going to crush you like grapes every time you attack us," then we lose. When we have malevolent leadership such as that now in the White House, leadership that announces that the war with Islam is over, then the jihadis and their murder machine fuel up and go to work. That is what we have now, as I wrote long ago, "We are not at war, we are under attack,"
A perusing of my archives will show the many, many postings I have about M3. My point throughout has been that Islam is not a religion like the others; the Jihadis and their M3 are followers of a totalitarian creed which far from being a "religion of peace" (the stupidest meme to come from the Bush administration) is a cult of death and slavery, of total submission. This is a "religion" that has undergone no enlightenment, and what reformation has taken place has pushed it closer to its 7th century origins in the Arabian peninsula. It treats women like garbage, has a uncompromising severe sexual code, has no compunction about killing anybody who transgresses that code especially women and gay men--although homosexual practices and pedophilia are rampant throughout the Muslim world--and sees Jews and Christians as prime targets for forced conversion, kidnapping, enslavement, other forms of subjugation, and murder. I should note that if Jews and Christians are not immediately available, M3 is willing to kill fellow Muslims, as we see, for example, right now in Syria and Iraq.
Tolerance is not a Muslim concept. Islam is the enemy of tolerance--not just the mythical "radical" Islam, but also straightforward everyday vanilla Islam is an enemy of tolerance.
If you go to a Muslim country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified; if Muslims come to your country, you must abide by Muslim rules and practices or Muslims will get offended and see your murder as justified. As I have said many times (here for example), try to build a church or a synagogue in Saudi Arabia, not possible; try to prevent Muslims from building a mosque in your home town, not possible.
This creed hates science and education; it hates and fears women; it wages war on freedom, joy and happiness. Islam seeks to make its subjects ignorant and brutish, and succeeds quite well at doing that--I admit, it does share that objective with modern progressivism. You see, Muslims and "liberals" do have something in common: the pursuit of ignorance.
For all its bravado, gunpowder, and chest-beating Islam is a cowardly and weak creed. It cannot stand debate; it fears having its tenets quoted back to it by non-believers; it invents its history because its real history is too horrible to contemplate; it can point to almost nothing but conquest, death and destruction as its achievements. M3 is a cowardly apparatus, feeding on the weak.
This Muslim Murder Machine is far from invincible, it can be defeated. I wrote long ago when discussing the SEALs' killing of Bin Ladin,
That brilliant raid should be a lesson for Muslims on the perils of following the path laid out by Jihadi murderers. It should also be a lesson for the West: we can defeat the Jihadis as long as we realize it is a long process, requiring patience, and sacrifice--and if we can continue to produce the men who carried out that raid.
Islamic civilization is a rotten house. Constant outside pressure either will collapse it, or force its miserable occupants to begin a serious effort at reforming and rebuilding it. Islam holds sway among some of the world's potentially richest and most advanced countries, but that, in fact, are among the poorest and most retrograde on the planet. Islam as practiced is a failed ideology: it leads to slavery, stupidity, and poverty on a mass scale. The greatest victims of Islam are the Muslims forced to live under its tyrannical, mind-numbing, and brutal rule.
Islamic civilization produces nothing. Yes, yes, what about algebra? Ok, Ok, it hasn't produced anything in modern times besides ignorance, death, despair, and poverty. It is the MSNBC of religious faiths, but, admittedly, with higher ratings.The horrible fact, however, is that now we are doing precisely the opposite of what we did that night in Abbottabad. Almost always when the intended victims of Islam band together, say "No, you will not win," and fight back, Islam retreats. Be it at the gates of Granada or Vienna, the waters off Lepanto, the streets of Jerusalem, the sands of the Sinai, the hills of Afghanistan, or in a filthy compound in Pakistan, when the non-Muslims fight, Islam loses. It poses as a great warrior class, but it cannot stand up to the West either on the battlefield or in the arena of ideas.
Islam can only defeat the West when the West first defeats itself. When Western leaders assume that our constitutions and legal codes are suicide notes, that Islam is just another religion, that 99% of Muslims are not terrorists, the West loses. When the West refuses to stand up and tell the Muslim world, "We are better than you are. You should learn from us, but meanwhile we are going to crush you like grapes every time you attack us," then we lose. When we have malevolent leadership such as that now in the White House, leadership that announces that the war with Islam is over, then the jihadis and their murder machine fuel up and go to work. That is what we have now, as I wrote long ago, "We are not at war, we are under attack,"
The problem is not one regime or another. The problem is not creating yet another Arab state in "Palestine." The problem is not our insensitivity. The problem is Arab Islam. The deep, deep pathologies of Arab Islamic societies are out for all to see . . . yet again. And our great, overpaid liberal mass media with all their highly "educated" anchors and pundits, what are they covering? They are attacking Governor Romney for daring to say that we should never apologize for our core beliefs. The media and many at State, including the increasingly unhinged Hillary Clinton, claim that the unrest we now see in the Arab world, unrest which takes the form of attacking US embassies and murdering our people, is due to some obscure video made in July by some obscure person who has yet to be fully identified. Perhaps, then, it was in anticipation of this film that Osama bin-Ladin had his crazies fly planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?The world is increasingly on fire, and the ignition and the fuel for those flames come from Washington DC.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Big Fraud in the Far Abroad, Part X: The Long Good-Bye
It was now late April 2003, and, as noted, the prosecutors finally had given the go-ahead to arrest AC and Long. AC, of course, now lived in Medford, Oregon. We wanted them both detained at the same time despite the twelve-and-half hour time difference between Oregon and Sri Lanka. FBI and DS wanted Long arrested on US Embassy grounds. AC was to be arrested at around 7 am Oregon time as he left the house for the restaurant just after the kids had gotten on the school bus. That meant we had to grab Long around 7:30 pm Colombo time. We needed, therefore, to make sure that she would be at the Chancery at that time.
I cooked up an "all Americans must attend" meeting for 7:00 pm; I sent an email to American employees and their spouses telling them we would hold a mandatory meeting at 7:00 pm and they could have no excuses for not attending, "Even if you are to dine with the British Queen, you will call that off and be at the Chancery for this critical meeting." On getting the message, Long came to my office to try to get more of the story. I said, "The Ambassador will make an important announcement. I don't know anything else." She also tried to pry additional information out of the RSO and the Ambassador but got the same answer with the additional bit that the announcement would affect admin operations making it, therefore, crucial to have her and her American staff present.
At about 6 pm, Long came back to ask if I had additional information about the meeting. I said, "No, I don't have anything more." She shrugged and replied, "Oh, well. I am going down to the gym for some bicycling, take a shower, and be back up." That was my last conversation with Long. She headed down to the tiny gym she had had built. Just before the appointed time for the meeting, the Ambassador walked into my office and said, "You take the meeting. I am going to be with the investigators."
I walked down to our small conference room as the American employees and their spouses dutifully trooped in. Long, meanwhile, had returned to her office, still wearing her gym shorts; she sought to dry her hair, change, and get down to the meeting.
The Ambassador went into her office and said, "Long, these gentlemen want to talk to you." He pointed at some DS and FBI agents standing behind him.
"But what about the meeting? I don't want to be late."
"Don't worry about that, just go with them." The agents escorted her to one of the RSO's offices and closed the door.
I sat at the head of the big conference table fending off questions, telling people to show patience, to wait, we had some news developing. The phone on the table rang. The Ambassador told me, "AC has been arrested in Oregon. Long is being arrested right now. Tell the folks."
I announced the arrests; a gasp went through the room. Everybody knew Long and AC. There was widespread disbelief. I further announced that several of our local employees had been involved in the visa scheme, including some of my own residence staff, and were being visited as I spoke by local police and the RSO's people. We were conducting searches of their Chancery offices. These employees would be barred from Embassy grounds, fired, lose their pensions, and perhaps have criminal charges brought against them. A DS investigator from Washington gave a quick summary of the case, emphasizing that this was perhaps the biggest visa fraud case in Department history, noting that some $3 million might have been involved. Our Public Affairs officer read the announcement we would make to the local press the next morning; we would go public and not try to hide the corruption. The meeting broke up.
I returned to my office and sat there with my wife. "Well," I told her, "My first time as DCM and I have the biggest fraud case ever on my watch, and I have to jail or fire half the embassy. This is not good." My wife, who had soured on the State Department, Colombo, and BS, eventually went home. I stayed, really for no reason. The Ambassador also was hanging around. We went out on the balcony into the warm tropical night so he could smoke a couple of cigarettes and I a cigar. We sipped bourbon. We didn't talk very much. We stared at the ocean and the starry sky, listened to the waves, took in the breeze. After thirty minutes or so, he went back to his office and I to mine.
Some time after midnight, the door opened to the RSO office where Long was being interrogated. She was escorted out. The Ambassador and I walked out of our offices and watched her walk down the hallway to the elevator. Her head hung down, long hair down the sides of her head hiding all but a slight glimpse of her profile, hands behind her, with an agent on either side of holding an arm. She still wore the gym shorts. Her flip-flops made the only sound. Long looked small and frail, even old and tired, in the midst of the young federal agents. She did not look at us, keeping her eyes focussed some two or three feet in front of her. The elevator doors opened, in she went, and was gone.
I never saw her again.
One more post to come on this story reporting on some of the aftermath of the scandal.
I cooked up an "all Americans must attend" meeting for 7:00 pm; I sent an email to American employees and their spouses telling them we would hold a mandatory meeting at 7:00 pm and they could have no excuses for not attending, "Even if you are to dine with the British Queen, you will call that off and be at the Chancery for this critical meeting." On getting the message, Long came to my office to try to get more of the story. I said, "The Ambassador will make an important announcement. I don't know anything else." She also tried to pry additional information out of the RSO and the Ambassador but got the same answer with the additional bit that the announcement would affect admin operations making it, therefore, crucial to have her and her American staff present.
At about 6 pm, Long came back to ask if I had additional information about the meeting. I said, "No, I don't have anything more." She shrugged and replied, "Oh, well. I am going down to the gym for some bicycling, take a shower, and be back up." That was my last conversation with Long. She headed down to the tiny gym she had had built. Just before the appointed time for the meeting, the Ambassador walked into my office and said, "You take the meeting. I am going to be with the investigators."
I walked down to our small conference room as the American employees and their spouses dutifully trooped in. Long, meanwhile, had returned to her office, still wearing her gym shorts; she sought to dry her hair, change, and get down to the meeting.
The Ambassador went into her office and said, "Long, these gentlemen want to talk to you." He pointed at some DS and FBI agents standing behind him.
"But what about the meeting? I don't want to be late."
"Don't worry about that, just go with them." The agents escorted her to one of the RSO's offices and closed the door.
I sat at the head of the big conference table fending off questions, telling people to show patience, to wait, we had some news developing. The phone on the table rang. The Ambassador told me, "AC has been arrested in Oregon. Long is being arrested right now. Tell the folks."
I announced the arrests; a gasp went through the room. Everybody knew Long and AC. There was widespread disbelief. I further announced that several of our local employees had been involved in the visa scheme, including some of my own residence staff, and were being visited as I spoke by local police and the RSO's people. We were conducting searches of their Chancery offices. These employees would be barred from Embassy grounds, fired, lose their pensions, and perhaps have criminal charges brought against them. A DS investigator from Washington gave a quick summary of the case, emphasizing that this was perhaps the biggest visa fraud case in Department history, noting that some $3 million might have been involved. Our Public Affairs officer read the announcement we would make to the local press the next morning; we would go public and not try to hide the corruption. The meeting broke up.
I returned to my office and sat there with my wife. "Well," I told her, "My first time as DCM and I have the biggest fraud case ever on my watch, and I have to jail or fire half the embassy. This is not good." My wife, who had soured on the State Department, Colombo, and BS, eventually went home. I stayed, really for no reason. The Ambassador also was hanging around. We went out on the balcony into the warm tropical night so he could smoke a couple of cigarettes and I a cigar. We sipped bourbon. We didn't talk very much. We stared at the ocean and the starry sky, listened to the waves, took in the breeze. After thirty minutes or so, he went back to his office and I to mine.
Some time after midnight, the door opened to the RSO office where Long was being interrogated. She was escorted out. The Ambassador and I walked out of our offices and watched her walk down the hallway to the elevator. Her head hung down, long hair down the sides of her head hiding all but a slight glimpse of her profile, hands behind her, with an agent on either side of holding an arm. She still wore the gym shorts. Her flip-flops made the only sound. Long looked small and frail, even old and tired, in the midst of the young federal agents. She did not look at us, keeping her eyes focussed some two or three feet in front of her. The elevator doors opened, in she went, and was gone.
I never saw her again.
One more post to come on this story reporting on some of the aftermath of the scandal.
Thursday, June 19, 2014
Big Fraud in the Far Abroad, Part IX: The Beginning of the End
True to the strategy laid out in his emails, AC turned in his resignation, saying he intended to go to Oregon, taking dogs and kids.
I, for one, felt glad to hear he would go. After over eighteen months of knowing about his and Long's activities, it had become increasingly difficult to keep up the charade of friendliness with this hail-fellow-well-met. Quite aside from the fact that he considered me an idiot, as stated in his emails, the investigation, I thought, by now had plenty of material to arrest and indict the thieving duo and more kept showing up: a new line of inquiry, for example, began developing re their possible involvement in an adoption racket with an ex-FSO, who had served with them in Hanoi and was now a Seattle-based lawyer.
Everyone who knew about the investigation was tired. There existed a poisonous atmosphere in the embassy; the bonds of trust that must exist with colleagues when serving far from the flagpole had become strained and frayed. I wanted the investigation to end and, desperately, to leave Colombo. As I told my wife, every time I had to deal with Long and AC I felt the need for an acid bath to remove the slime. Despite, nevertheless, my desire to leave, I remained concerned about the possible intelligence angle involving Long. We had discovered by certain means that she had a huge stack of pre-approved adoption certificates from the Vietnamese government. The adoptee's name remained blank but the rest of the document was signed, stamped, and ready to go. In my view, either Long had corrupt Vietnamese officials on her payroll, or had something else more sinister going on. I spoke to the FBI, but they and the prosecutors wanted to wrap things up. They had no interest in following up.
Life as a criminal in Colombo seemed also taking a toll on AC. One weird incident took place at the couple's house where we got invited to see AC put on a piano recital. Having taken piano lessons in a bid to seem more cultured, he now wanted to show off a bit. My wife found an excuse not to go, so I went alone. At this event there were several embassy people and some Sri Lankans. As usual, the food proved excellent, and poor little Zu had to put on her customary show. AC then sat down at the piano and began to play. He wasn't bad. Half way through a piece, however, he froze; he just starred at the musical score, his hands on the keys but still. This went on for a few painfully long moments, then AC put his chin on his chest and began sobbing, at first quietly and then quite loudly and uncontrollably. Long bolted from her chair, and said AC hadn't been feeling well and perhaps we should let him rest. We all quietly left. Neither AC nor Long ever mentioned this odd occurrence.
AC's planned departure presented a small but vexing problem. Who would give the farewell party? None who knew of the investigation wanted anything to do with it. Long forced the issue by inviting several of us to dinner at the new seafood buffet restaurant run by the Hilton hotel. None of us wanted to go, but in the end, did. It proved a forced affair with AC's buffoonish antics and jokes falling flat--nobody was in a laughing mood. It was just too much to listen to AC and Long tell us that now that AC was looking for a job they had told the kids to economize. One item on the restaurant menu had the ingredient "lemongrass." AC kept repeating that word to Long; they would smile at each other. "Lemongrass" was, of course, the name of the restaurant the two were setting up. We all had to pretend to be stupid about the source of the funding.
The next day, the consular section gave a little good-bye party for AC. As DCM, I got asked to make a few comments. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was bland, certainly not effusive about AC's qualities or full of words stating how much we would miss him. At the end of the party, AC put his big paw on my shoulder, and said, "Lew, man, I am not feeling the love. Where's the love, man? Where's the love?" He seemed genuinely nervous. I could muster only a wan smile and sip my warm soda water. Early the following morning, AC left post with a gaggle of kids, a couple of dogs, and a nanny.
Long, normally one tough cookie, became terrified at the prospect of living in the large house alone. She asked for more alarms, motion detectors, lights, and an increased frequency of patrols around her residence. She even wanted a guard permanently stationed there. I could not help but think that, perhaps, if she knew we had her under constant surveillance she might relax. It soon became clear why Long had become so fearful. Again, true to the scheme laid out in his emails, AC had scored a few more "home runs" before flying to Oregon. He had ripped off the Indian smuggling ring for an amount somewhere north of $50,000. He took the ring's money for visas, and departed without issuing said visas. Long, as we discovered via means I will not describe, was certain that Indian "mobsters" would come seeking revenge. She seemed to see a hit man lurking in every shadow and behind every tree. As far as I know, however, the Indians never showed up.
Long visited me in my office every day, more than her usual three or four times daily, as though a sixth sense alerted her that something was up. She told me that her promised assignment in New Zealand seemed to have hit a snag. She couldn't get a straight answer from personnel or from the office of BS of where that assignment stood. BS would not take or return her calls. Long asked me to see what I could discover. I told her to be patient: the Department worked in mysterious and slow ways. Long had become nervous and distracted; I often found her looking out the window, oblivious to the world around her.
DS and FBI investigators consulted with us on when to move against AC and Long. Prosecutors had given the signal that, finally, they thought they had enough to convict AC and Long and get them very long sentences, some fifteen to twenty years in a federal penitentiary. AC was in Oregon and Long in Colombo. There exists a twelve and half hour difference between the two time zones. FBI and DS wanted to effect the arrests simultaneously so nobody could get warned. We agreed that the feds would arrest AC at his home at 7 am Oregon time, making it 7:30 pm in Colombo. The agents wanted Long arrested on Embassy grounds. She would be placed on a commercial plane, escorted by DS and FBI to London, where she and her escorts would transfer to a flight to Washington DC. I was tasked with briefing the Sri Lankans and the British High Commission on the case and seeking their help to make the transportation process go smoothly--we, for example, did not want Long making a "break for it" in Colombo or London, demanding asylum or creating a scene of some sort. The Sri Lankans and the British promised full support.
I will stop there as we approach the end of this sorry tale. We are almost finished.
I, for one, felt glad to hear he would go. After over eighteen months of knowing about his and Long's activities, it had become increasingly difficult to keep up the charade of friendliness with this hail-fellow-well-met. Quite aside from the fact that he considered me an idiot, as stated in his emails, the investigation, I thought, by now had plenty of material to arrest and indict the thieving duo and more kept showing up: a new line of inquiry, for example, began developing re their possible involvement in an adoption racket with an ex-FSO, who had served with them in Hanoi and was now a Seattle-based lawyer.
Everyone who knew about the investigation was tired. There existed a poisonous atmosphere in the embassy; the bonds of trust that must exist with colleagues when serving far from the flagpole had become strained and frayed. I wanted the investigation to end and, desperately, to leave Colombo. As I told my wife, every time I had to deal with Long and AC I felt the need for an acid bath to remove the slime. Despite, nevertheless, my desire to leave, I remained concerned about the possible intelligence angle involving Long. We had discovered by certain means that she had a huge stack of pre-approved adoption certificates from the Vietnamese government. The adoptee's name remained blank but the rest of the document was signed, stamped, and ready to go. In my view, either Long had corrupt Vietnamese officials on her payroll, or had something else more sinister going on. I spoke to the FBI, but they and the prosecutors wanted to wrap things up. They had no interest in following up.
Life as a criminal in Colombo seemed also taking a toll on AC. One weird incident took place at the couple's house where we got invited to see AC put on a piano recital. Having taken piano lessons in a bid to seem more cultured, he now wanted to show off a bit. My wife found an excuse not to go, so I went alone. At this event there were several embassy people and some Sri Lankans. As usual, the food proved excellent, and poor little Zu had to put on her customary show. AC then sat down at the piano and began to play. He wasn't bad. Half way through a piece, however, he froze; he just starred at the musical score, his hands on the keys but still. This went on for a few painfully long moments, then AC put his chin on his chest and began sobbing, at first quietly and then quite loudly and uncontrollably. Long bolted from her chair, and said AC hadn't been feeling well and perhaps we should let him rest. We all quietly left. Neither AC nor Long ever mentioned this odd occurrence.
AC's planned departure presented a small but vexing problem. Who would give the farewell party? None who knew of the investigation wanted anything to do with it. Long forced the issue by inviting several of us to dinner at the new seafood buffet restaurant run by the Hilton hotel. None of us wanted to go, but in the end, did. It proved a forced affair with AC's buffoonish antics and jokes falling flat--nobody was in a laughing mood. It was just too much to listen to AC and Long tell us that now that AC was looking for a job they had told the kids to economize. One item on the restaurant menu had the ingredient "lemongrass." AC kept repeating that word to Long; they would smile at each other. "Lemongrass" was, of course, the name of the restaurant the two were setting up. We all had to pretend to be stupid about the source of the funding.
The next day, the consular section gave a little good-bye party for AC. As DCM, I got asked to make a few comments. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was bland, certainly not effusive about AC's qualities or full of words stating how much we would miss him. At the end of the party, AC put his big paw on my shoulder, and said, "Lew, man, I am not feeling the love. Where's the love, man? Where's the love?" He seemed genuinely nervous. I could muster only a wan smile and sip my warm soda water. Early the following morning, AC left post with a gaggle of kids, a couple of dogs, and a nanny.
Long, normally one tough cookie, became terrified at the prospect of living in the large house alone. She asked for more alarms, motion detectors, lights, and an increased frequency of patrols around her residence. She even wanted a guard permanently stationed there. I could not help but think that, perhaps, if she knew we had her under constant surveillance she might relax. It soon became clear why Long had become so fearful. Again, true to the scheme laid out in his emails, AC had scored a few more "home runs" before flying to Oregon. He had ripped off the Indian smuggling ring for an amount somewhere north of $50,000. He took the ring's money for visas, and departed without issuing said visas. Long, as we discovered via means I will not describe, was certain that Indian "mobsters" would come seeking revenge. She seemed to see a hit man lurking in every shadow and behind every tree. As far as I know, however, the Indians never showed up.
Long visited me in my office every day, more than her usual three or four times daily, as though a sixth sense alerted her that something was up. She told me that her promised assignment in New Zealand seemed to have hit a snag. She couldn't get a straight answer from personnel or from the office of BS of where that assignment stood. BS would not take or return her calls. Long asked me to see what I could discover. I told her to be patient: the Department worked in mysterious and slow ways. Long had become nervous and distracted; I often found her looking out the window, oblivious to the world around her.
DS and FBI investigators consulted with us on when to move against AC and Long. Prosecutors had given the signal that, finally, they thought they had enough to convict AC and Long and get them very long sentences, some fifteen to twenty years in a federal penitentiary. AC was in Oregon and Long in Colombo. There exists a twelve and half hour difference between the two time zones. FBI and DS wanted to effect the arrests simultaneously so nobody could get warned. We agreed that the feds would arrest AC at his home at 7 am Oregon time, making it 7:30 pm in Colombo. The agents wanted Long arrested on Embassy grounds. She would be placed on a commercial plane, escorted by DS and FBI to London, where she and her escorts would transfer to a flight to Washington DC. I was tasked with briefing the Sri Lankans and the British High Commission on the case and seeking their help to make the transportation process go smoothly--we, for example, did not want Long making a "break for it" in Colombo or London, demanding asylum or creating a scene of some sort. The Sri Lankans and the British promised full support.
I will stop there as we approach the end of this sorry tale. We are almost finished.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Collapse--Part I
Who among us with an IQ larger than Peter Dinklage's shoe size thinks Obama has an American foreign policy?
Everywhere around the globe we see the collapse of the West, its influence, its values, its interests, its will to protect itself against both totalitarians and purveyors of anarchy. I cannot name another time in history when we have seen so rapid and total a collapse of Western foreign policy, and of Western understanding of how the world works. It would seem as though the most naive possible idiots have assumed power in the West, or, perhaps more accurately, those who hate the West have assumed control of the West.
Let's start with Europe, the Old World, once the center of the universe. Europe's once great confidence and creativity which shaped the modern world are now submerged in socialist economics, the demands of political correctness, and, of course, the quicksand of a "more perfect" EU--the bureaucratic monster to end all bureaucratic monsters. Europeans are willingly giving up their liberty and their heritage to the tender care of meddlesome well-paid bureaucrats. While those EUcrats worry about the curvature of bananas, the percentage of cocoa beans in chocolate bars, and the human rights of murderers and terrorists, Europe falls to an invasion of "immigrants," occupiers really, who hate and seek to destroy the very values that protect them in Europe.
Among the Europeans, the will to defend what is theirs has disappeared. Ancient European cities, the cradles of Western civilization, are increasingly nasty, rotten, no-go zones filled with the criminal advocates and practitioners of totalitarian Islam who live on the public dole and mock and detest the politically correct fools who provide it. Europe's leaders, prattling on about climate change and gay rights, quake in the shadow of a renascent and aggressive Russia led by a man who recognizes fear and weakness in others; he has shown NATO for the empty shell that it has become. Russia, now owner of a new military machine and flush with petrodollars and gaseuros, stands ready to resume a place on the borders of Old Europe, threatening to cutoff Europe's energy supplies--turning it into an ecologist's dream, i.e., a land unfit for human habitation. Internal decay spreads as armed aggression marches: the perfect storm. Europe is now a collection of dead and dying nations.
This time, however, no salvation comes from the New World. The disease and decay have spread across the Atlantic. America's increasingly ignorant and illiterate electorate--eager to emulate dying Europe--have put in power a coterie of quasi-Marxist thugs, ideologues, incompetents, racists, and, yes, haters of the very America they are sworn to serve and protect and which provides them with ample salaries and benefits. These malevolent creatures hate America; they cannot abide that the greatest citadel of freedom and liberty in the history of the world was founded by no-nonsense, gun-carrying, white male Christians--and I say that as a Jewish American, and the son of immigrants. They have accepted and propagated a perverted version of American history in which anybody not a white male Christian is a victim entitled to an endless array of benefits and to seeing an end to that "white male Christian nation."
I know this will be misunderstood, and that I will be maligned for this by some, but what we see afoot, in both America and Europe, is no less than a war conducted from the outside by forces such as the Great Muslim Murder Machine, and by a fifth column of "progressives" against Western civilization.
Let's be more precise. We have a war underway against white male civilization.
Let's be even more blunt.
The concepts of human rights, democracy, liberty, and free enterprise; the great scientific, engineering, and medical inventions and discoveries; the great explorations of the globe; the magnificent literature and art; these are overwhelmingly the products of white males--many of them Jewish, most of them Christian. In the past few decades we have seen a backlash against that, a movement that instead of calling on all to emulate these white male achievements, calls upon these achievements to be ridiculed, denigrated, and destroyed. That is the core of the issue in America and in Europe and around the world. The haters, the race-obsessed thugs are now in charge.
We see the results of this at home with the opening of our borders to a hostile invasion and most notably abroad as our power and influence are undermined from Washington DC.
My next post will look at the result of this war against the West as manifest in what passes for US foreign policy.
Everywhere around the globe we see the collapse of the West, its influence, its values, its interests, its will to protect itself against both totalitarians and purveyors of anarchy. I cannot name another time in history when we have seen so rapid and total a collapse of Western foreign policy, and of Western understanding of how the world works. It would seem as though the most naive possible idiots have assumed power in the West, or, perhaps more accurately, those who hate the West have assumed control of the West.
Let's start with Europe, the Old World, once the center of the universe. Europe's once great confidence and creativity which shaped the modern world are now submerged in socialist economics, the demands of political correctness, and, of course, the quicksand of a "more perfect" EU--the bureaucratic monster to end all bureaucratic monsters. Europeans are willingly giving up their liberty and their heritage to the tender care of meddlesome well-paid bureaucrats. While those EUcrats worry about the curvature of bananas, the percentage of cocoa beans in chocolate bars, and the human rights of murderers and terrorists, Europe falls to an invasion of "immigrants," occupiers really, who hate and seek to destroy the very values that protect them in Europe.
Among the Europeans, the will to defend what is theirs has disappeared. Ancient European cities, the cradles of Western civilization, are increasingly nasty, rotten, no-go zones filled with the criminal advocates and practitioners of totalitarian Islam who live on the public dole and mock and detest the politically correct fools who provide it. Europe's leaders, prattling on about climate change and gay rights, quake in the shadow of a renascent and aggressive Russia led by a man who recognizes fear and weakness in others; he has shown NATO for the empty shell that it has become. Russia, now owner of a new military machine and flush with petrodollars and gaseuros, stands ready to resume a place on the borders of Old Europe, threatening to cutoff Europe's energy supplies--turning it into an ecologist's dream, i.e., a land unfit for human habitation. Internal decay spreads as armed aggression marches: the perfect storm. Europe is now a collection of dead and dying nations.
This time, however, no salvation comes from the New World. The disease and decay have spread across the Atlantic. America's increasingly ignorant and illiterate electorate--eager to emulate dying Europe--have put in power a coterie of quasi-Marxist thugs, ideologues, incompetents, racists, and, yes, haters of the very America they are sworn to serve and protect and which provides them with ample salaries and benefits. These malevolent creatures hate America; they cannot abide that the greatest citadel of freedom and liberty in the history of the world was founded by no-nonsense, gun-carrying, white male Christians--and I say that as a Jewish American, and the son of immigrants. They have accepted and propagated a perverted version of American history in which anybody not a white male Christian is a victim entitled to an endless array of benefits and to seeing an end to that "white male Christian nation."
I know this will be misunderstood, and that I will be maligned for this by some, but what we see afoot, in both America and Europe, is no less than a war conducted from the outside by forces such as the Great Muslim Murder Machine, and by a fifth column of "progressives" against Western civilization.
Let's be more precise. We have a war underway against white male civilization.
Let's be even more blunt.
The concepts of human rights, democracy, liberty, and free enterprise; the great scientific, engineering, and medical inventions and discoveries; the great explorations of the globe; the magnificent literature and art; these are overwhelmingly the products of white males--many of them Jewish, most of them Christian. In the past few decades we have seen a backlash against that, a movement that instead of calling on all to emulate these white male achievements, calls upon these achievements to be ridiculed, denigrated, and destroyed. That is the core of the issue in America and in Europe and around the world. The haters, the race-obsessed thugs are now in charge.
We see the results of this at home with the opening of our borders to a hostile invasion and most notably abroad as our power and influence are undermined from Washington DC.
My next post will look at the result of this war against the West as manifest in what passes for US foreign policy.
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