American-Turkish Council—What the heck is this?

Ever heard of this? Me neither. Madsen's report is doing a special report on this group. There seems to be a bunch of mid-Asia-related associations made up of heavy hitters from US business and government—as if there's a difference.

Here's the Wikipedia entry of the American-Turkish Council, containing this intriguing lineup from last year:

According to its 2005 annual report, current ATC board members include:

1. Brent Scowcroft, the board chairman and former national security adviser for George H. W. Bush
2. George Perlman of Lockheed Martin
3. Elizabeth Avery of Pepsico
4. Ozer Baysal of Pfizer
5. Andy Button of Boeing
6. Richard K. Douglas of General Electric
7. Sherry Grandjean of Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation
8. John R. Miller of Raytheon
9. Selig A. Taubenblatt of Bechtel
   

And this spicy little tidbit:

The ATC is where former Ambassador Joseph Wilson met his future wife and CIA operative, Valerie Plame, leading some to speculate Plame's CIA front company, Brewster-Jennings, was monitoring the same alleged nuclear trafficking of the ATC as Sibel Edmonds.

Here's a story from last year in www.onlinejournal.org containing another rogue's gallery:

ATC is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC's Honorary Council of Advisors just happens to have Scowcroft and the following persons of significance: Henry Kissinger, Zibigniew Brezinski, Lloyd Benston, John Sununu and James Baker III. Former Council members include Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage, former undersecretary of state. Board of trustee members include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Frank Verrastro of CSIS.

The US Kazakhstan Business Association (UKBA) features, among others, benefactors and members ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Lockheed Martin, and Halliburton.

Here's a exceedingly eager and friendly speech of Wolfowitz's to the American-Turkish Council from early 2001—before 911. I imagine things cooled off greatly after Turkey refused to allow US planes to attack Iraq from Turkish bases, or even to overfly Turkish land.

Madsen also seem to think the next Neocon Oilrush is going to be in the Gulf of Guinea in Africa.

I also bet that, like me, you didn't know this, either. (More from the Wikipedia:)

Equatorial Guinea now has the second highest per capita income in the world, after Luxembourg

And:

A Senate report in 2004 found that Riggs Bank helped top officials of Equatorial Guinea steal hundreds of millions of dollars in oil revenues.