Jeff Silverman — Too Educated for His Own Good
I, Jeffrey K. Silverman, have been blamed for many things, not only being a Kremlin hack, AKA, troll, but an American agent, NOK, non-official contact, and most recently a CIA agent who penetrated one of the alternative news sites closest to the Kremlin, New Eastern Outlook, NEO, under the auspices of the Russian Academy of Science, Institute for Oriental Studies. I am also the Bureau Chief for Veterans Today, which has its following, a sordid bunch.
We have something in common; we took our oaths on the US Constitution Dead Serious — to defend the US from all enemies foreign and domestic. If that means using any media outlet outside of the MSM to get our word across, so be it and good riddance to anyone who takes exception.
But it all started back at Fort Knox Kentucky, Home of Armor, when I was trained as a Forward Observer — or Calvary Scout, dating back to 1981. The cold war was still hot, and we were told that our life expectancy was short when the shit hit the fan.
Fortunately, it did not during the Carter years. However, that MOS only was useful later in life when I started working for an international tobacco company. I was growing and buying tobacco in Brazil, China, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Later when the British Company that I worked for got bought out by an American one, I have booted out the door, three months’ severance and ended up back in the US at the ripe age of 42. I decided to finally finish my MSc degree. Then I headed back to Georgia,
To make a long story short, I ended up at the Patterson School of Diplomacy, University of Kentucky—one of the so called “spy-finishing schools” in the US at a Land Grant Institution. I got my MSc plus in vocational agriculture and could take all the Patterson coursework to my heart’s content, diplomacy, and international law.
Anyway, I ended up with too much education for my own good and too much experience; I could see too many things — make too many connections and when working for a US-funded NGO, United Methodists Committee for Relief, UMCOR, as an agricultural program director, I was naïve to report suspected corruption to the home office and got my “at will” contact cancelled the last day, and they tried to put me on the next flight back to the US.
I stayed, investigated, took a job as a copy editor for the Georgian Times, and the Embassy had me fired from that too. Soon I connected the pieces together and learned that the US State Department was using a US Department of Agriculture “Food for Peace Program” to fund Chechen fighters, your freedom fighter is my terrorist.
I learned all the details and opened the story in Georgia, and then the problems started. The murder of Roddy Scott, based on information provided by the OCSE sealed my fate; I was picked up on the order of the US Embassy and beaten in Azerbaijan the next day. And then my passport was later revoked by the US government and declared a non-national of the US, left without any passport in Azerbaijan. Having an old Georgian one, Joni Simonishvili, proved useful in jumping the border back to Georgia and out of the hands of the US Embassy and their Azeri enforcers.
As I wrote Roddy Scott, a British Journalist, about the notes that I had compiled when investigating corruption in the US funded NGOs … “share it with those who really want to get to the bottom of what is happening in Georgia and Pankisi.”
It was soon clear that US and Georgian Special Services admitted outright that they were working together with the Chechens, blowing somebody up in a toilet (perhaps it was Vepkhia Margoshvili). That is where my life changed. I am, was just a guy who found himself down and out, low on cash and wrote some articles to pay the bills.
It was clear when we compared notes, which was fascinating and certainly started filling in a few blanks for me. Here are a few things I have heard from the Chechens themselves. All this comes from guys I know in Pankisi.
1. Georgian generals, who have actually come to his house in Duisi, have regularly visited Khamzat Gelayev.
2. Georgian soldiers regularly sell weapons to the Chechen muj in Pankisi.
3. Last year’s foray into Abkhazia was entirely organized by the Georgians, and they even sent a number of their own special forces with the Chechens. These Special Forces are the same people who man the checkpoints to Pankisi.
4. The Georgians are interested in clamping down on Arabs in Pankisi, but not Chechens. Apparently, three prominent Arabs were snatched at the checkpoint on the bridge a while back.
The kidnapping was very much a JV between Georgians and Chechens. And, yes, they had to pay twice. The guy who held them captive is called Imran Akhmadov, a person that I know quite well. He is the brother of Ramazan Akhmadov, who was killed Jan 2001.
As I saw myself, sneaking in and out of Pankisi several times, “there were plenty of boyeviks [Chechen fighter] in Pankisi, and pretty much they operate openly; but the story has never really come out because most journals don’t have access.”
And there is a real danger of kidnapping if you are there too long without the protection of a Chechen commander. Equally, the Chechens have a vested interest in making sure the full story never comes out (in print, photos or TV). It’s the kind of thing that might just provoke the Russians to do something, (or give them an excuse, I guess).
As Roddy Scott, who was killed in 2002, wrote me just before his death.
“As you mention all too clearly, there is a very cozy relationship there between the Chechens and the Georgians. Hence most journals have got the right end of the stick, but have never had the sources to back it up.
On the Arab side of things, I confess I’m a bit hazy. But the guys have told me there are plenty of Arabs there, some of whom have married locally. (I have only ever met a couple of Arabs, and that was a 2000 trip across the mountains to Chechnya with 30 other Chechen fighters). But I have my doubts about the ‘Al Qaeda recent arrivals.’ From what you say it seems that it might all be an excuse to increase US toe hold in the region.
Again, would be very interested in comparing notes with you. Seems that there is a lot we might be able to piece together if we sit down and swap info. Oh yes, re Azerbaijan. First time I went to Baku, (en route to Pankisi in 2000), I stayed in flat with half a dozen wounded guys who had been treated in Baku. A year later, back in Pankisi, I bumped into some of them again, recovered and ready to get back into action.”
Having been here since 1991, in Georgia, has been a front row seat for a region which has been thrown back into a rerun of the Great Game. All the while the Russians are trying to retain their influence, while the Americans and British are strengthening their foothold in the region. With the attention of such powerful forces, regional leaders have begun to exercise their positions. The Chechens and Georgians have formed a secret strategic alliance against the Russians, Azerbaijan turns a blind eye and allows financial support and medical aid, and now the Georgians are attempting to reunify their country by quashing the small semi-autonomous Russian-oriented regions in the country, namely the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.