The Nicaraguan contras - who were gaining a reputation for brutality, corruption and drug trafficking - were represented at the summit, as was Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, who was condemned by human rights groups for gross abuses, including widespread murders, rapes and mutilations.
As the Cold War was ending in 1989, Abramoff tried his hand at movie producing, churning out an anti-communist action thriller called "Red Scorpion," which was subsidized by South Africa's white-supremacist regime. [For details, see Salon.com's "The Tale of Red Scorpion."]
In Power
Abramoff signed up with the lobbying firm of Preston Gates Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds before moving to Greenberg Traurig.
Last year, on the tenth anniversary of the Republican takeover, conservative writer Andrew Ferguson lamented Abramoff's key role in getting Republicans to forsake their rhetorical war on big government and corruption, in favor of dividing up the spoils.
"For 25 years Abramoff has been a key figure in the conservative movement that led to the 1994 Republican Revolution, which once promised 'to drain the swamp' in Washington, D.C.," Ferguson wrote.
But instead, Abramoff became "the first Republican to discover that pretending to advance the interests of conservative small-government could, for a lobbyist, be as insanely lucrative as pretending to advance the interests of liberal big-government," Ferguson wrote. "The way a winner knows he's won is by cashing in his chips."
Abramoff scored big by representing Indian tribes that needed political clout for their gambling operations.
Ferguson wrote, "Abramoff's ingenuity quickly earned him a reputation as the premier lobbyist for Indians in Washington - though he only worked for casino-owning tribes, who were, after all, the only 'free market laboratories' that could afford Washington lobbyists. He regularly arranged fact-finding trips for congressmen and their staffs to the casinos, especially those with golf courses."
Branching out, Abramoff represented the textile industry in the Marianas islands, a U.S. protectorate that could stick "Made in the USA" labels on clothing produced in sweatshops free from U.S. labor regulations. Abramoff flew in congressmen for tours and a chance to play golf at a scenic course. DeLay was so impressed that he hailed the islands as "a perfect Petri dish of capitalism." [Weekly Standard, Dec. 20, 2004]
Abramoff had learned the flexible ethics of Washington politics during the final days of the Cold War when ideology justified rubbing shoulders with corrupt "freedom fighters." But he and his legion of prote'ge's managed to adapt those dubious lessons to the "free market" era of Republican rule.
The end result has been a noxious "crony capitalism" that has seeped into nearly all U.S. government policies, from the War on Terror to the Iraq War to the Hurricane Katrina recovery effort.
Now the ground under George W. Bush and the Republican congressional majority is beginning to shake as fissures crack the surface, warning of a volcanic eruption that could transform the political landscape of Washington.
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