Patriot Games: Deep State Secrets

Here's another article by Mike Mejia, which I have reproduced in its entirety. Every link in the original article that I found working on September 15th I also reproduced.

The article can be found in various places on the Internet, most notably: The secrets behind 'state secrets': Sibel Edmonds, Turkey's mafia and their US neocon allies by Mike Mejia Online Journal Contributing Writer, Jul 26, 2006, 01:16 (also at The Secrets Behind 'State Secrets': How Turkey's Mafia-like 'Deep State' (and its Neocon Friends) Penetrated the American Government). Here it is with my comments:

French filmmaker Mathieu Verboud is set to release a new documentary for European television this fall, which will reveal important new insights into the case of former FBI translator and president of the National Security Whistleblower's Coalition Sibel Edmonds.

Obviously in the past year the movie is out, but all that I can find in cyberspace are short publicity teasers, most notably at Sibel Edmonds' website.

Edmonds, a Turkish-American whose wrongful termination lawsuit was suppressed by the government's invocation of the all-too-common "state secrets privilege", reported to her superiors espionage and deliberate mistranslations on the part of fellow Turkish translator, Melek Can Dickerson. It seems Ms. Dickerson had relationships with targets of FBI investigation working at the Turkish Embassy and the American Turkish Council, a fact which meant that anything she translated was likely to be false. However, instead of receiving a promotion for bringing Ms. Dickerson's' espionage to the attention of her bosses, Edmonds was fired after she went in frustration to the U.S. Senate.

This part of the story is interesting.

Ms. Dickerson's husband was at the time an Air Force officer (I haven't heard whether he is still in the Air Force). The Dickersons came over rather unexpectedly to the Edmonds' residence, and tried blatantly to recruit Sibel.

Sibel had heard at the FBI of the organization the Dickersons were trying to recruit her into, but the information was classified, so she of course had not told her husband anything. So there she is, as the Dickersons are telling Sibel and her husband about this, and her husband doesn't know the background, and Sibel, for obvious reasons uncomfortable, is trying to change the subject. It paints a rather humorous picture, although to Sibel at the time I'm sure it wasn't funny.

With Ms. Dickerson translating the wiretaps about Turkish spying against US targets, while Dickerson is on the payroll of the same Turkish organizations that are being investigated for spying, needless to say the transcripts were all labeled as insignificant, the counterintelligence information in them "lost in translation" -- such was the title and one theme of the 60 Minutes segment done on this.

The FBI refused to investigate Edmonds' claims, at least in part, because the contract linguist had discovered quite a messy scandal: the content of the mistranslated documents revealed that some very powerful people in the U.S. government, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, were connected to foreign organized crime. Even worse, these foreign criminals connected to the high and mighty in the U.S. were also connected internationally, through the heroin trade and associated money laundering, to international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.

Apparently, the information came in through FBI Counterintelligence (CI) channels, and had to be passed to other FBI departments for further action (investigation, prosecution). Needless to say, this was never done. The special agents on CI were told that the translations yielded nothing, when in fact this was not the case.

A few key people were able to stonewall the hard, time-consuming work of many honest FBI agents.

This is the way many of the related scandals in Washington have developed: key people in key places obstruct justice and derail the investigation.

I say "related scandals" because out beyond the beltway, America (and foreign audiences) hear about things that do not seem to have a connection, but when you get high enough up the pyramid, many of these scandals suddenly connect -- more on that some other time.

Okay, take a deep breath and take a step back: it's not a pretty picture. According to what we know so far from Sibel Edmonds' many interviews and from the groundbreaking story on her case from Vanity Fair, "An Inconvenient Patriot" , Edmonds found that within the U.S. a nest of Turkish spies, some working at the Turkish embassy, others affiliated with namely the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), the American Turkish Associations (ATA) and the American Turkish Council (ATC), were involved in espionage, bribery, illegal lobbying, drug trafficking and the infiltration of U.S nuclear research labs.

Keep in mind that this is trafficking of narcotics and weapons technology, to include nuclear weapons technology. Other organized crime money-makers are involved as well. The related bribery and lobbying efforts are present to cover for and further those goals. Spies are involved, stealing the secrets and paralyzing the counterintelligence effort.

Separately, from a former CIA Counterterrorism official, Phillip Giraldi, who himself was once based in Turkey, we know that some arms sales meant for Turkey and Israel were actually meant for resale to countries like China and India -- and perhaps even to international terrorists -- using fake end-user certificates. So we have Turkish nationals at the Embassy and NGOs stealing U.S. secrets for sale to the highest bidder, re-selling arms meant for Turkey, bringing in drugs from Europe, and pouring money into bribes and lobbying activities.

There are related activities going on involving certain Israelis, as well. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the news for the past three decades or so -- Israel has on previous occasions been busted spying on the United States.

American weapons and weapons technology go out, winding up in the hands of our enemies and potential enemies, and narcotics come back, flooding European streets and showing up inside America as well. A good time is had by all.

To understand how these activities fit together -- Americans must first understand what Europeans call the Turkish 'deep state'. In 1996, a car crash in a town called Susurluk revealed "link between politics, organized crime and the bureaucracy" in Turkey. As it turns out, its crippled economy in the 1990s meant Turkey had become the European equivalent of Colombia -- a state almost completely dependent on the Turkish mafia and by extension, the Southwest Asian Heroin trade. Which is where the Turkish 'deep state' comes in -- it becomes very difficult to determine where the 'government' ends and the 'mafia' begins. What we do know from Sibel Edmonds and other sources is this: Turkey’s secular establishment, including the Turkish military and intelligence services (MIT), as well as political parties associated with former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, appear to have been more connected to the Turkish mafia than the Turkish Islamic Parties that Washington abhors. Furthermore, it appears from reading into some of Edmonds' statements that the Turkish mafia was partnered with Osama Bin Laden’s al Qaeda network in the drug trade -- meaning Turkey's secular establishment was more connected to al Qaeda -- pre/9-11 -- than were the Islamists in Turkey. Which is quite ironic, to say the least.

Ironic, indeed.

In an effort to stymie Islamic extremists, the US Government sides with secular Turks. But, the secular Turks are involved in narcotics trafficking, so the US Government tolerates some heroin as being the lesser of two evils, so much more so, since some of the heroin money is finding its way into the hands of those advisors who are recommending this course of action.

But, it turns out that Al Qaeda also traffics heroin, and has business ties with these secular Turkish mafiosos that override the ideological ties between bin Laden and Turkish think-alikes.

Consequently, those making US policy regarding Turkey -- and other nations in Central and Southwestern Asia -- are drinking from the same trough as the terrorists.

If you think this story sounds too convoluted to be true, and you feel the instinct to dismiss Edmonds' claims, think again. Every investigation into the whistleblower's charges- from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Department of Justice's Inspector General Report, has found that Edmonds’ story is corroborated within the FBI, which means her translations, not those of Melek Can Dickerson, were the correct ones. This also means that the aforementioned Turkish organizations, and certain Turkish diplomats, were indeed under FBI investigation. And all this put together means that people like Dennis Hastert probably were -- and perhaps still are -- on the payroll of Turkish 'deep state' interests.

In addition to the above link to the 60 Minutes segment, you might wish to read the letters sent by US Senators regarding this matter.

A recent article published in the U.K. Guardian about the well-connected Kurdish Baybasin clan also gives important backing to the former translator's story. The article details how Europe's "Pablo Escobar", Huseyin Baybasin, has "alleged that he had received the assistance of Turkish embassies and consulates while moving huge consignments of drugs around Europe, and that Turkish army officers serving with NATO in Belgium were also involved." This information, of course, dovetails most precisely with what Sibel Edmonds has been hinting at for over 3 years now; that targets of FBI investigations linked with the Turkish embassy and Turkish organizations were involved in narcotics trafficking. It is clear the Baybasin gang and the secular factions in Turkey had a seemingly symbiotic relationship, with the government providing the traffickers diplomatic passports and thus free reign to travel around the world without fear of prosecution. Also involved in the scandalous Turkish drug running are the very notorious, Pope-killing Grey Wolves, a fascist organization connected to human rights abuses in Turkey.

As pointed out above, Turkey is so corrupt that it is hard to tell where the Turkish government ends, and where Turkish organized crime begins -- again, a pattern familiar to anyone who has looked at the influence of drugs in Latin America.

As for who else besides Hastert might have been on the payroll of Mr. Baybasin and friends -- we turn next to the Executive Branch. In an interview with Chris Deliso of antiwar.com, Edmonds hinted at key roles played by some powerful unelected officials -- important Neoconservatives like Marc Grossman of the State Department, and Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, formerly of the Defense Department. If we hit the rewind button and go back to a CBS 60 Minutes' interview in October, 2002, we remember the ex-contract linguist stated that Turkish targets of FBI investigation had spies inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon in order to "obtain the United States military and intelligence secrets." It doesn't take a genius to conclude that Grossman, Feith and Perle might have been the persons to whom she was referring in 2002. Furthermore, the language specialist has repeatedly stated in past interviews that investigations into pre-9/11 terrorist financing activities were blocked "per State Department request", leaving open the question whether it was Mr. Grossman, then Undersecretary of State for European Affairs, who actively hindered investigations into the Turkey-Bin Laden link.

By mistake, Feith was linked in the original to the Wikipedia article about Perle. In case the intent was to link to the Wikipedia article about Feith, here it is. For good measure, here is the Wikipedia article about Grossman.

Perle and Feith are an interesting case in this hidden scandal. Their consultancy, International Advisors (IA), has done extensive work for the Republic of Turkey, though it is questionable who is paying the invoices. Ms. Edmonds rhetorically asked the question of Phoenix radio personality Charles Goyette in January 2006, "For what [were they paid]?" One could imagine, hypothetically, that passing state secrets might be one "service" provided to the Turkish mafia/government by IA. But would Perle and Feith have gone beyond that? Would they have introduced the Turkish mafia types to Denny Hastert, and counseled "deep state" interests in how to skirt U.S. campaign finance laws? After all, the Turks were reported to have made their initial payments from 1996-1998 through "unitemized (less than $200) contributions", after which they allegedly delivered suitcases of cash to the Speaker's front door. Someone had to teach them the intricacies of campaign finance law: was it IA? What we do know is that Perle was a key architect of the Israeli/Turkish alliance forged in the late 90s, and that Edmonds case also is connected to the AIPAC spy scandal -- leaving lots of room for speculation on how the rest of the story pans out.

Recall that, due to the gag orders Sibel Edmonds is under, she isn't allowed to tell us things. Consequently, when she asks a question, especially a rhetorical question, it is tempting to suggest that she already knows the answer, and just isn't allowed to say.

As messy and ugly as this, for lack of a better phrase, "Turkish DeepState Gate" scandal appears, the consequences of continuing to do nothing about it -- of allowing the government's outrageous use of 'state secrets' to insure Dennis Hastert, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman and others are never investigated, could be horrific.

Horrific indeed. The mafiosos who are pulling the strings of those who make US policy are not only connected via business dealings to the terrorists that threaten America, but also have major interests in the arms industry.

A "War on Terror", a war which has no end in sight, a war unlike any other, a war that will last for our lifetime, is made to order: the mafiosos benefit from the arms transactions, and the war provides cover for the narcotics trafficking. Moreover, since the enemy is terrorism, any War on Drugs takes a back seat to the War on Terror; a conscious decision is made and justified in Washington to leave the poppy fields in Afghanistan intact, so as not to alienate the Afghani people who cultivate them, in an effort to win their hearts and minds.

Ms. Edmonds plans to take petitions to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to finally force full and open hearings on her case. She will try to do the type of lobbying that does not involve foreign bribery or ill-gotten gains. This will be the simple type of petitioning guaranteed of every citizen in the Constitution under the First Amendment, a long forgotten portion of the Bill of Rights. Americans aware of the situation can only hope, and do everything in their power to insure, that Ms. Edmonds' type of lobbying prevails.