January , 2010 -- Pietton's wife, Marla Sanchez Pietton, a Cuban-American, translated for DEA...
http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showConnection.php?id1=1991&id2=5543The Cuban-American wife of French ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton, Marla Sanchez Pietton, was among the victims of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 shortly after it took off from Beirut International Airport. The Boring 737-800 was bound for Addis Ababa. Mrs. Pietton was flying via Addis Ababa to South Africa where she had lived while her husband served as ambassador before his transfer to Beirut last September.
Lebanese officials were quick to rule out terrorism as a cause of the crash, which killed all 90 passengers and crew, but eyewitnesses reported seeing a fireball in the sky prior to the plane crashing into the Mediterranean Sea. There were heavy thunderstorms in the vicinity of the airport at the time of the crash. Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr stated that the Beirut control tower told the pilot to make a turn to avoid the storm but he flew the plane in the opposite direction. The exact cause of the crash remains unknown.
Prior to his South Africa posting, Pietton and his wife lived in Washington, DC, where Pietton was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the French embassy. Pietton, while in Washington, had a brush up with Fox News. On December 14, 2004, during the continued neo-con blitzkrieg against France over its failure to back the United States in Iraq, Fox's Brit Hume led into a story on Pietton:
"And speaking of France, which opposed and still opposes the war in Iraq, it seemed for a while anything French was held in low esteem in Washington. French fries, you'll recall, became Freedom fries. One American newspaper called the French and Germans 'The Axis of Weasels.' But now Washington's tourism industry wants to forget all that. Fox News correspondent Brian Wilson went out to investigate and apparently set off a bit of an international incident . . ."
Wilson reported: "A big press conference in the nation's capitol today to announce plans to bring U.S. and French tourists to Washington this coming spring. It's called 'Paris on the Potomac,' a celebration of all things French in Washington. Though it's French accordion music and French food, the pastry is way better than the usual D.C. press conference fare. There was even an official with the French Embassy.
Fox then aired a statement by Pietton, "I would like to express my most profound gratitude to all of you, and tell you how touched we are by this undertaking."
Wilson then reported, "Unfortunately, good friendships were not on the mind of Monsieur Denis Pietton from the French Embassy." Pietton shoved aside the Fox microphone and walked away.
Wilson then proceeded to launch into an anti-French diatribe masked as a news report:
"Obviously no defense in the French attitude, though they did give us this French baguette as a parting gift. The truth is there are many things in Washington that are French- influenced. Here is a statue of a guy named General Lafayette. He sits on square named Lafayette Square directly across from the White House. And the entire city of Washington was designed by a French architect by the name of L'Enfant. Still, one must wonder how successful a tourism effort can be if it starts out like this. I mean does this look like the beginning of detente? French diplomats aside, most of the people I have met in Washington who are from France have been very nice. In fact, a few years back, I was invited to the French Embassy for dinner. Do you know what they served me? Pigeon. Fat chance I'll ever get invited back. Hey, guys. You want some bread? French bread? In Washington, Brian Wilson, Fox News."
Apparently, Pietton was at constant loggerheads with the neocons and their favorite "news" network during his stint in Washington.
Marla Sanchez Pietton was an accomplished translator and interpreter of Spanish, Italian, French, and English. More noteworthy is that according to her c.v., Mrs. Pietton provided translation services for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, and the Internal Revenue Service. Other translation clients included the fraud-plagued French bank Credit Lyonnais and the collapsed telecommunications giant, MCI. Ambassador Pietton had served as the French Consul General in Miami from 1992 to 1997. He then was a top official at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris before being posted with his wife to Jerusalem as French Consul General from 1999 to 2002. Pietton and his wife then transferred to Washington for three years before becoming French ambassador to South Africa.
While the Piettons were in Jerusalem, the DEA began conducting surveillance of teams of Israeli "art students" who were living and working with some of the 9/11 hijackers, particularly in the Miami-Dade and Broward County area. Some of the students claimed to be art students from the non-existent University of Jerusalem. The nexus of the Israelis, many of whom were former Israeli military and intelligence personnel, with some of the 9/11 hijackers, was quickly ushered off the pages of newspapers and a Fox News story on the students was yanked from the network's web site.
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