Inside America’s Long, Tortured Pursuit of the ’Merchant of Death’

/inside-americas-long-tortured-pursuit-o

  • Inside America’s Long, Tortured Pursuit of the ’Merchant of Death’ | VICE News
    https://news.vice.com/article/inside-americas-long-tortured-pursuit-of-the-merchant-of-death

    Le diable en personne devient un parangon de vertu du moment qu’il travaille pour le compte de l’establishment étasunien.

    Soghanalian, who once ran a used car lot near Binghamton, New York, was described in 1992 by Assistant US Attorney Susan Tarbe as a “con man” and “master manipulator.” A declassified FBI teletype notes his “deliberate violations and/or circumventions of US laws” related to “a myriad of statutes and regulations under jurisdiction of numerous federal agencies.” Those agencies include — but are not at all limited to — Treasury, Customs, Commerce, the ATF, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FAA, and the State Department.

    But Soghanalian’s intentions were always honest, says Gerald Richman, his longtime attorney.

    “I represented Sarkis going all the way back to 1977, ’78,” Richman told VICE News. "The impression that I had was that he would never have done anything that went against the interests of the United States…. Everything he was doing was done under the watchful eye of our government. I was there when he called [President Ronald Reagan’s National Security Advisor] Robert McFarlane in the White House.

    “I mean, his name was mentioned in Oliver North’s diary.”

    In fact, Soghanalian was called “one of our most important intelligence assets” by his former control officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency. After Soghanalian sent 26 planes packed with relief supplies to an earthquake-stricken region of Armenia in 1988, President George H.W. Bush called him someone who “strengthened the ties that unite mankind.”