The Twilight Zone, Part 3

(Continued from Part 2)

In what was obviously a set-up to lure her back to Pakistan and get her out in the open where they could take a shot at her, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated.

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

She was too westernized, too liberal. She was killed by militant Islamic extremists. What do you expect? After all, we're in the midst of a War on Terror.

And we believe that...

The place is a madhouse

Pakistan's ISI helped the US support the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan, in part by helping arrange funding -- by trafficking heroin.

Destroy the Red Army through heroin addiction...

Covert money for covert ops... out of reach of Congress...

Feels like being cloned

The 9/11 operation was beyond the capability of a terrorist group that does not have a state sponsor. A terrorist group may have been the junior partner in the operation, but it needed help.

Pakistan's ISI is very professional, very capable -- and its leader at the time was connected to a significant money transfer to the 9/11 terrorists shortly before the attack.

Sibel Edmonds commented on the Turkish-language materials she encountered, how there was a buzz before 9/11 that something big was up, that blueprints for US skyscrapers had gone to some place in the Middle East...

My beacon's been moved

Elements in Pakistan have been involved in the nuclear blackmarket -- the same industry that the Turkish Deep State dabbles in.

Those elements in Pakistan are also connected to Communist China, from whom they got substantial help for their nuclear program, including detailed blueprints and assembly diagrams for nuclear bombs with instructions in Chinese.

"The PRC has stolen classified information on every currently deployed thermonuclear warhead in the U.S. ICBM arsenal."

Under moon and star

Al Qaeda is now believed to have some nuclear weapons, and to have them here inside the United States.

But, any investigation into Al Qaeda's nukes will lead to Pakistan's A. Q. Khan network, and from there to China and places in the Middle East -- and then to Washington.

Where am I to go

The attacks on 9/11 hit the World Trade Center, which houses firms that are involved in financial activities, such as stock trades.

During the attack, while the buildings were burning, the computers in the stock firms continued to work...

Now that I've gone too far?

Somebody pushed stock trades through those computers while everyone was distracted...

A lot of stock trades...

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

WTC-7 housed, among other things, the offices of important government agencies that investigate financial and white collar crime.

WTC-7 collapsed that afternoon, even though it wasn't hit by a plane...

The place is a madhouse

The Twin Towers were engineered to survive the impact of a Boeing 707 fully loaded with fuel...

In fact, each tower could have survived multiple hits by 707's full of fuel...

Feels like being cloned

Yet, in collapses that looked remarkably like controlled implosions, three skyscrapers came down, supposedly due to the impact of two aircraft...

There was no real investigation of this catastrophe -- the rubble was cleared as fast as possible, under suspicious circumstances...

My beacon's been moved

The narcotics come from Afghanistan, where the drug cartels have experienced a tremendous surge in activity, now not only producing more than 90% of the world's supply of opiates, but actually refining it within Afghanistan -- a quantitative and qualitative leap made under the watchful eyes of US and NATO military power, the same military forces that have been backing Islamic terrorists in their bids for independence first in Bosnia, and now in Kosovo.

Over 90% of a trillion-dollar-a-year industry...

Under moon and star

Much of the heroin is moved through Turkey and within Europe by Turkish government personnel with diplomatic credentials -- the so-called Turkish Deep State, the same organized crime cartel that has US government officials in Congress, in the State and Defense Departments, and in the Federal Bureau of Investigation on its payroll.

The Albanian mafia, much of which is based in Kosovo and is very connected to terrorists and to Kosovo's new government, is also a major player, not just for heroin, but for weapons, sex slaves and other contraband.

Where am I to go

A backlog of Turkish-language FBI intercepts from before 9/11 had a buzz that the attack was coming.

In the Summer of 2001, the FBI noticed that Islamic extremists with no corresponding background were learning how to fly airliners.

Now that I've gone too far?

The FBI was alerted that a hijacked airliner could be used as a bomb, and passed that information on to the President's Secret Service detail.

US intelligence agencies were aware of a dozen similar plots in the previous decade by Islamic terrorists.

Soon you will come to know

Then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, of Communist-China-proliferation-fame, stated:

I don't think anybody could have predicted that these same people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, taken another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

When the bullet hits the bone

The terrorists on 9/11 thought they were martyring themselves for Allah, but they had been duped -- all they were really doing was covering up someone's scheme to simultaneously start a profitable war, gain control over the heroin industry, and launder the proceeds of organized crime...

Mostly heroin money... laundered in stock trades pushed through the computers in the WTC during the attack...

(And laundered during the War on Terror after the attack...)

By the billions...

Soon you will come to know

And when the bad guys were done, they imploded the Twin Towers and WTC-7 to cover their trail.

When the bullet hits the bone

The Twilight Zone, Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia, and the United States and many other nations quickly recognized the new nation.

In a world turned upside-down, I find myself agreeing with the Kremlin that this is in violation of the applicable UN resolutions and of international law...

I find myself desiring the impeachment and prosecution of an entire Administration -- of "fellow" Republicans!

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

Of course, international law is no obstacle for an Administration that has essentially established an extraterritorial system of gulags, in which are held "detainees", to whom the Administration denies fundamental human rights.

If prisoners of war, then they have certain internationally-recognized rights; if terrorists, then as suspected criminals they have certain other rights.

But the Bush Administration has made up its own set of rules regarding how to classify them, so as to deny them any legally-established rights -- and the US Government has been proactive in justifying abusive methods of interrogation.

The place is a madhouse

Waterboarding is, under US law, a war crime; it is a method of torture, and the results it yields are erratic and unreliable, and ultimately counterproductive, both as a form of intelligence collection, and in the realm of public relations.

The terrorists that threaten the world are fanatics, for whom no crime is too great; if it promotes the spread of Islam, they believe any crime will be forgiven by Allah, and they will be allowed into Paradise.

Feels like being cloned

The world is awash in a sea of brutal dictatorships, drowning in cynicism and fear, desperate to believe in America's promise of Liberty and Justice for all...

But now, the Bush Administration writes itself retroactive laws excusing its conduct...

My beacon's been moved

Its supporters justifying the action by saying that the terrorists are worse...

Of course, that's not the point.

Under moon and star

We are the good guys, and our standards should not be allowed to drop.

America is a beacon of hope to all the people in the world, and when America acts in such a manner...

Where am I to go

Then the light in the world dims, and the darkness of oppression and brutality closes in.

Now that I've gone too far?

Within hours after arriving back in Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto was targeted by would-be assassins as two powerful explosions killed and wounded hundreds of people nearby, including fifty security personnel from her own political party. The attacks were blamed on Islamic militants. Careful not to directly finger Pakistan's President Musharraf, who had seized power in a military coup in 1999, Bhutto nonetheless blamed certain government figures who abuse the militants to achieve their own goals -- a powerful indictment in a country where the military and intelligence services have for years trained jihadis and used them as proxies in ongoing low-intensity hostilities with India.

Soon you will come to know

Concerned not just about her safety, but about Pakistani government complicity in the assassination attempts, Bhutto wrote a letter to Musharraf implicating former senior intelligence officers who were close to Musharraf. Bhutto sought additional security from the government, including jammers to counter bombs, tinted windows, and police vehicles. She also requested security from foreign governments and foreign private security firms, but the Pakistani government would not provide visas for security contractors.

US diplomatic contacts did, however, take the unusual step of providing her with sensitive information regarding threats to her security.

When the bullet hits the bone

She later comments that "The extremists need a dictatorship, and dictatorship needs extremists."

Days after making that comment, Bhutto is placed under house arrest, only hours before she was scheduled to lead and address a rally protesting the state of emergency under which Musharraf had been ruling. Bhutto comments that 4000 police are outside her house while she is under house arrest.

Soon you will come to know

That kind of manpower was available to keep her from speaking publicly, but where was it on the day she was assassinated?

As one expert commented:

"It's odd and disturbing that the Pakistan government did not do a better job of protecting her and that the US apparently could not do more to persuade them," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and former National Security Council director for South Asia. "She made it very clear privately and publicly that she did not have enough security. That was abundantly clear after the attack on her return.

"I can't explain why the Bush administration didn't pressure Musharraf to do more. Her death leaves the US with a Pakistan policy that is completely bankrupt."

When the bullet hits the bone

Bankruptcy of policy depends on which side you are on, and as I investigate this, looking deeper and deeper into matters, looking farther and farther afield for more clues, and following up on leads, I find that the investigation keeps leading back to the same powerful people, to the same powerful interests...

Although each time it does lead back around, it ropes in another unexpected player from another unexpected direction.

I'm falling down a spiral

Following up on why the US government failed to respond adequately to indications that the 9/11 attacks were pending, I now have information connecting the Secretary of State to Communist Chinese espionage operations.

Questioning why the US government would violate international law and UN resolutions to support the independence of Kosovo, I now have information that a US Senator from Arizona has been knowingly backing Islamic terrorists for a decade.

Those terrorists are tied to organized crime syndicates that traffic in weapons, sex slaves and narcotics.

The Sibel Edmonds case is only the very small tip of a very big iceberg.

Destination unknown

Senator Hillary Clinton has taken over $100,000 from a new lobby that serves as a front for Turkish organized crime, and she has been supportive of the process leading to an independent Kosovo. No wonder, her husband supported KLA terrorists in the 1990's as President.

Sibel Edmonds tried to warn America that important US officials have been on the payroll of Turkish organized crime since the 1990's, but when she came forward in 2002, abiding by the law and following procedures, she was fired.

A double-crossed messenger

Her allegations have been investigated by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, by two US Senators, by 60 Minutes -- true, 60 Minutes only looked at the least incendiary allegations -- but every one of Sibel Edmonds's claims that has been looked into has been substantiated, and none of them have been disproven.

She should get a medal, but instead she was the target of legal action by the Bush Administration, essentially prohibiting her from talking about any of it.

All alone

Congress is too compromised -- too many of them have been bought off by the same people that Edmonds warns us of, Turkish lobbies that front for organized crime, the so-called Turkish Deep State. The Executive Branch, too, is compromised...

Many of those who aren't bought off by Turkish organized crime are bought off by someone else; the remainder have no power.

There is no one in officialdom who will act.

I can't get no connection

The media won't pick up her story.

So, it is up to the blogosphere to keep writing about this and investigating.

I can't get through

But, more has to happen. The American public has to take an interest in this story, and start making it an issue. They need to make this matter get the attention that Congress and the media seem determined to deny it.

Where are you?

If that doesn't happen, then the bad guys win -- and that means "that government of the People, by the People, for the People" shall indeed "perish from this earth".

Well, the night weighs heavy

The plug can get pulled on this in so many ways, because the system is so fragile. If any element collapses, the rest will come down like a house of cards.

It is a very expensive, very profitable house of cards, but a house of cards it is.

On his guilty mind

For example, if Islamic militants now hiding in Pakistan were decisively defeated or the battle against them were otherwise ended, then there would be no more reason to permit the opium trade to flourish in neighboring Afghanistan. Any battlefield success on the part of the US and NATO would eliminate the cover needed for heroin smuggling, and completely gut a 1 trillion-USD-per-year industry...

As well as causing the collapse of corrupt regimes who are tolerated in the name of the War on Terror...

This far from

So anyone who threatens the house of cards has to be stopped...

And Benazir Bhutto was doing just that with her determination to get Osama bin Laden, allowing US military forces into Pakistan if necessary...

The borderline

Lured by the possibility of power-sharing in a new government after elections, her way carpeted by an offer of amnesty for outstanding corruption charges, Benazir Bhutto ran the substantial risk of returning to Pakistan in order to campaign for the planned elections.

When the hitman comes

She was then assassinated in an operation staged in Rawalpindi, an important Pakistani city, home or past home to Pakistan's military headquarters, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, elements of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, and other important facilities. It is a location that Pakistan's professional security apparatus should be able to secure; in any operation in which they are involved, Pakistani security forces have home-court advantage in "Pindi".

He knows damn well

Yet, somehow Islamic militants slipped in and killed Bhutto -- and the government couldn't prevent it, despite repeated warnings that her life was in danger, despite repeated assassination attempts that killed and wounded hundreds of people, and despite repeated requests for additional security.

That these Islamic militants train in camps associated with the Pakistani military and Pakistan's ISI is an inconvenient fact we aren't supposed to recall.

He has been cheated

It is obvious now that she was set up all along, enticed by the fragrant bait of involvement in an election, and targeted for elimination in such a way as to maintain plausible deniability for the people pulling the strings of her assassination.

(Continued in Part 3)

The Twilight Zone, Part 1

Sitting down at my computer and contemplating what I have learned blogging this past year...

Somewhere in a lonely hotel room

I started out investigating militant Islam, and the threat it poses to the world.

The "Religion of Peace" is centered on texts that continually call for the waging of holy war against non-believers -- and there are too many fanatical followers who interpret those passages quite literally as what they must do to get to paradise...

But, there's something else...

There's a guy starting to realize

The devastating attacks on this country that occurred on September 11, 2001, leaving thousands dead and propelling America forward into a War on Terror...

That eternal fate

A war that would erode our civil rights and international law, as our civilian authorities overrode the advice of career military officers and sent our armed forces and those of our allies careening around the world to battle evil...

Has turned its back on him.

Those attacks were successful, literally against all odds...

They were too successful, miraculously getting past layers of defense, from intelligence officers on watch, to government agents investigating financial irregularities, slipping past state-of-the-art fighter interceptors of the best Air Force in the world, and bringing down skyscrapers that were not only designed but overengineered to survive exactly such a crisis....

It's two AM...

Any one layer of those defenses, if functioning as it should, would have disrupted the attack and caused it to fizzle, perhaps leaving dozens of people dead, but leaving thousands of the attack's would-be victims alive, and resulting in the round-up of dozens of terrorists and the freezing of many millions of dollars' worth of their assets...

It's two AM

And it seems obvious to me that these guys could not have pulled this off alone, but that they had to have had help -- the backing of someone's national intelligence services.

(Two AM)

Someone expert and professional, well-connected, well-financed...

We are told that Al Qaeda acted alone, but I know the most powerful nation ever to exist was not humbled by a bunch of jihadis with boxcutters, terrorizing on a budget.

The fear is gone

The greatest nation on earth, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all...

Is under attack...

But the attackers have help...

(the fear is gone)

Help from our nation's "allies"...

And help from our nation's own corrupt "public servants"...

"...that government of the People, by the People, for the People shall not perish from this earth."

And I must investigate, and I must write the truth.

I'm sitting here waiting

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is tied to Pakistan's Islamic religious schools, known as madrassas. Some of the madrassas receive funding from Saudi Arabia, and preach an extremist form of Deobandi Islam which is similar to the Wahhabi extremism that has been officially sanctioned by the Saudi royal family, according to an agreement reached between Saud and Wahhab centuries ago.

(sitting here waiting)

Some of these extremist madrassas indoctrinate their students with a love of violent jihad against the infidel, preparing them to become mujahideen -- Islamic holy warriors who will seek the defeat of the infidel on earth, and an eternity in Paradise through martyrdom. These madrassas then feed eager recruits to training camps with which they are associated, where the holy warriors learn how to fight.

The gun's still warm

After an agreement was reached granting Benazir Bhutto amnesty in the face of pending corruption charges, the way was cleared for Bhutto, who had previously been Pakistan's prime minister on two occasions, to return to Pakistan for upcoming elections that were expected in late 2007 or early 2008.

We are told that Pakistani forces can't get the Taliban out of Pakistani territory near the border, nor can they find bin Laden. We are told that neither can the US go in and get them without fear of destabilizing Musharraf, and driving Pakistan into the hands of the extremists.

What we are not told about is the role played by Musharraf and key elements in Pakistan's government in setting up and perpetuating the extremist problem.

(the gun's still warm)

But now Bhutto, who is pro-Western and very popular in Pakistan, says "I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans. But if I couldn't do it, of course we [Pakistan and US] are fighting this war together and [I] would seek their co-operation in eliminating him."

Of course, if this happens, the extremist-sympathizers who now run Pakistan will have their bluff called.

Bhutto finalizes her plans for the upcoming election campaign; monitoring this, others finalize their plans, as well.

Maybe my connection

In the aftermath of 9/11, Sibel Edmonds sought to do her patriotic duty for her new country, and looked into offering her services as a translator to the FBI. She had previously applied, but the application was not acted on. Now, with a sense of urgency, the FBI puts her to work reviewing a backlog of material that had been piling up for years. Much of the backlogged material is in Turkish, Sibel's native language; dealing with bribery, corruption, narcotics trafficking and other areas of FBI concern, some of it also pertains to the recent terrorist attacks that shocked the world and launched the War on Terror.

Is tired of taking chances

While reviewing these documents and working in a room full of other translators who, in turn, have access to materials that literally give a global perspective on the threat facing America, Sibel comes across information -- raw, unfiltered, without any spin, yet correlated to other information and related to investigations she is supporting -- that shows elements in the US government knew, prior to 9/11, that Al Qaeda was going to attack American cities with airplanes. Moreover, she also saw evidence that plans for US skyscrapers had gone to some place in the Middle East, also in the months leading up to 9/11's devastating attacks.

Most importantly, though, she saw something else...

Yeah, there's a storm on the loose

High-ranking US government officials, including elected members of Congress from both parties, and including appointed officials in the State and Defense Departments, were on the payroll of Turkish organized crime. These Turkish mobsters were trafficking heroin, arms, and other contraband -- including information from the US nuclear weapons program for the world's nuclear blackmarket. And, people in the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- people sitting just a short distance away from Sibel -- were involved, on the payroll of these Turkish mafiosos, derailing investigations and burying critical intelligence information -- preventing our hard-working, brave FBI agents in the field from protecting America.

Sirens in my head

The reality of this became glaringly apparent one weekend when a colleague of hers from the FBI brought her husband over to the Edmonds' residence. Melek Can Dickerson's husband, a US Air Force officer, tried to recruit Sibel to work for an organization that fronts for the Turkish mafia: the American Turkish Council. Nervous about the ramifications of what she was hearing, legally unable to explain it to her own husband at all, and certainly not in the presence of their visitors, Sibel tries to divert the conversation to other topics, as she anticipates her duty of reporting this incident at the FBI.

But her reports are rebuffed, her family back in Turkey is threatened -- and, finally, Sibel is fired, literally escorted out of the building, after having spent only a few months reviewing and translating information at the FBI's Washington Field office.

Wrapped up in silence

Sibel takes the matter through channels, to the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, to elected members of Congress, and finally to the media. Her story is examined by all; what is looked at is confirmed, and none of her accusations are disproven. But, despite this, the story dies.

Finally, the matter winds up in court, but representatives of the Bush Administration's Department of Justice appear in the courtroom, and Sibel Edmonds and her attorneys are asked to leave. When they are finally allowed back into the courtroom, it is to be told that the case is dead -- the government has imposed State Secrets Privilege, shutting the case down completely; technically, even Sibel Edmond's date and place of birth are considered sensitive information, the release of which would supposedly damage national security.

All circuits are dead

Meanwhile, not knowing where else to turn, both Sibel and those who know about and are following her case ponder what this could mean. But, Sibel knows -- it is not to protect national security, but rather to cover up their own criminal conduct that corrupt elements in the government have made her the most gagged person in US history.

I cannot decode

Afghanistan under the Taliban was a brutally oppressive place, especially for women, who were treated as sub-humans, devoid of the rights any person is entitled to. Afghanistan was also a nest of radical Islamic militants, who exported their holy war around the world as they sought to force submission on mankind, or achieve martyrdom and an eternity in paradise in the arms of virgins through their efforts.

But, the Taliban had been effective in reducing the production of opiates in Afghanistan, thus diminishing the supply of heroin on the world's market.

Now, however, in the wake of the 2001 American-led invasion to oust the Taliban, opium production has been reborn, and Afghanistan produces over 90% of the world's supply. On top of that, whereas Afghanistan once exported only raw opium, now heroin is refined within the country, and shipped to market along the old Silk Road...

My whole life spins into a frenzy

The Silk Road, so much of which is now protected by a new string of US military bases established since 9/11 in the War on Terror...

And I recall the connections Sibel Edmonds warned about -- that Turkish organized crime figures who are involved in the heroin trade are paying off US government officials, giving them money now and promises of a worry-free retirement later, if only...

Help, I'm stepping into the Twilight Zone

Suddenly, as the realization sinks in, it all makes sense...

The heroin moves through the Balkans on its way to market in Western Europe, and that explains why the US is siding with Islamic extremists, first in Bosnia, then in Kosovo -- the War on Terror is just a smokescreen for corruption in the highest circles of the US government.

The place is a madhouse

Islamic militants are a serious threat -- not just to America, but to the rest of the world, most especially to other Muslims; yet, in this War on Terror, we have been siding with the Islamic terrorists in the Balkans, because they are helping move the heroin.

Of course, oil and natural gas can be found in the Caspian Basin in great quantities, and they need to move to market in pipelines through these same areas, so that becomes another layer of the matter.

Feels like being cloned

The War on Terror is a charade: scratch it once, it comes up Big Oil; scratch it twice, it comes up Big Heroin.

Furthermore, there's profiteering going on -- big government contracts to provide various services -- feeding the troops, providing security guards for important facilities, rebuilding wartorn countries...

My beacon's been moved

Our troops are dying, battling an endless supply of jihadis, who themselves are being exploited; but our troops are not allowed to win, because the instability benefits the movement of heroin, and ongoing hostilities mean ongoing government contracts to the profiteers.

Under moon and star

How far does this go?

I investigate, and keep coming up with new names, new connections, new twists to the plot, but the basic answers don't change...

Heroin, the nuclear black market, arms trafficking, oil, corruption and terror...

Where am I to go

Congress has been compromised, the FBI has been infiltrated, and the Executive Branch is in bed with Big Oil and the war profiteers -- except for strategically placed officials who are on the payroll of heroin traffickers.

And the media is shamefully and conspicuously silent...

Now that I've gone too far?

(Continued in Part 2)

Next Stop: Twilight Zone

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

SE: Look, I think that that [the AIPAC investigation] ultimately involves more than just Israelis – I am talking about countries, not a single country here. Because despite however it may appear, this is not just a simple matter of state espionage. If Fitzgerald and his team keep pulling, really pulling, they are going to reel in much more than just a few guys spying for Israel.

CD: A monster, 600-pound catfish, huh? So the Turkish and Israeli investigations had some overlap?

SE: Essentially, there is only one investigation – a very big one, an all-inclusive one. Completely by chance, I, a lowly translator, stumbled over one piece of it.

But I can tell you there are a lot of people involved, a lot of ranking officials, and a lot of illegal activities that include multi-billion-dollar drug-smuggling operations, black-market nuclear sales to terrorists and unsavory regimes, you name it. And of course a lot of people from abroad are involved. It's massive. So to do this investigation, to really do it, they will have to look into everything.

CD: But you can start from anywhere –

SE: That's the beauty of it. You can start from the AIPAC angle. You can start from the Plame case. You can start from my case. They all end up going to the same place, and they revolve around the same nucleus of people. There may be a lot of them, but it is one group. And they are very dangerous for all of us.

From a post at Lukery's blog, Sibel Edmonds Case: the untellable story of AIPAC:

Of course, Sibel would prefer to testify under oath in congress, but apparently our Democratic Congresscritters (I'm looking at you, Waxman) don't care about the treason, bribery, and corruption that has hijacked US foreign policy.

From a post at Lukery's blog, Sibel Edmonds Case: the untellable story of AIPAC:

Those of you who have been following Sibel's case will be familiar with the American Turkish Council (ATC) - the 'mini-AIPAC' that (ostensibly) exists to promote Turkey's military interests in the US.

As it happens, the ATC is a creation of AIPAC (and other Israeli lobbying interests) - and there is significant overlap in the membership, goals and activities of both AIPAC and the ATC. This is perhaps not surprising given the long-standing tri-lateral military (and military 'defense' spending) relationship between the three countries. In fact, Sibel refers to AIPAC and the ATC as 'sister organizations.'

Not only were the ATC and AIPAC 'sister organizations,' they also had something else in common: there have been 'sister investigations' into both organizations. And of course, both investigations uncovered serious criminality at the highest levels of the US administration - Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front – say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we've also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities – and they might even do that – but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything – from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

CD: So with these organizations we're talking about a lot of money –

SE: Huge, just massive. They don't deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

CD: Did you have any idea at the time about her suspect allegiances?

SE: I had no idea at first. It was only after some suspicious behavior and then her and her husband's unannounced visit to our house that everything became clear.

One day in December [2001], my husband and I were at our home in Alexandria, Va., when the doorbell rang. It was Jan and Doug Dickerson. They also lived in Alexandria, so I didn't think of it as suspicious at first. I think the point for her was to introduce her husband to mine. We invited them in for coffee, and –

CD: She started trying to recruit you for their illegal activities?

SE: No, actually she herself did not. It was the husband who started talking about this semi-legitimate organization: "Hey, have you ever heard of this group?" he said, casually mentioning this organization to my husband. He replied, "Yeah, I know about them." And I started sweating, because I knew this organization was under FBI investigation, and I was by law not allowed to discuss anything about it with my husband.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: Yes, as I said, a legitimate front. And Dickerson asked my husband if he'd ever thought of joining the organization.

CD: So there was something socially desirable about belonging in this group?

SE: Correct. And so my husband was kind of surprised, you know, because this wasn't the sort of group just anyone could belong to. "But I thought you had to be such and such a person, with such and such connections and references to get in," my husband was saying.

And then Major Douglas Dickerson smiled and pointed at me. "All you have to do is tell them where your wife works and what she does, and they will let you in like that," he said [snapping his fingers]. They wanted to sell me for the information I could provide, basically.

CD: What did you take this to mean? You would have to hand over classified FBI information –

SE: Correct. The information I could give these people would be worth a lot of money.

CD: And what would you get out of it?

SE: Well, money, and we could leave the country, you know, live a very comfortable life wherever we wanted. We would never have to work again, they promised.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

CD: Okay, so when the drugs –

SE: Not only drugs.

CD: Okay, so when whatever kinds of criminal contraband enter the U.S., then what happens to it?

SE: They are circulated by huge front companies. Of course, these companies often have a legitimate side to their businesses; maybe even the majority of their business is aboveboard. In this way, they arouse less suspicion. Say if it was, I don't know, a textiles company in Delaware. The stuff comes into port, and when it comes off the boat they open it up, and –

CD: "Hey, great, more textiles!" Something like that?

SE: Sure. And then it gets sent everywhere, through other companies in other cities, other front companies under different owners or even different branches of the same company. They could be anywhere, Denver, Detroit, San Diego, and everywhere in between.

CD: It sounds very sophisticated.

From Organizing in Politics:

WHO IS G. LINCOLN McCURDY?

G. Lincoln McCurdy has over 30 years of leadership and management experience in both U.S. government service and the private sector. He has extensive experience in dealing with bi-national boards; working with senior officials of the governments and military of the United States and Turkey; leading trade/investment missions and U.S. congressional delegations to Turkey; co-sponsoring activities with the State and Commerce Departments, Environmental Protection Agency, Smithsonian Institute and National Public Radio; and fundraising.

He served as the senior advisor to the Turkish American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New York in 2005 and 2006. McCurdy was the president and chief executive officer, 1998 - 2004, and executive director, 1989 – 1998, of the American-Turkish Council (ATC) in Washington, the leading business association in the United States devoted to the promotion of U.S.-Turkish commercial, defense and cultural relations. He received ATC’s Distinguished Career Award in 2005. Before joining ATC, Mr. McCurdy served in the American Consulate General in Istanbul as the Consul for Commercial Affairs, 1980 – 1984.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, An Interview with Sibel Edmonds (Page Two), July 1, 2004:

SE: I can't say anything specific with regards to these departments, because I didn't work for them. But as for the politicians, what I can say is that when you start talking about huge amounts of money, certain elected officials become automatically involved. And there are different kinds of campaign contributions – legal and illegal, declared and undeclared.

From Chris Deliso's interview with Sibel Edmonds, 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now', August 15, 2005:

CD: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?

SE: Oh yeah, they know.

CD: So why don't they get them?

SE: It's like I told you before – this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling – and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.

From Sibel Edmonds Official Website:

"As the widow of FireFighter Robert J. Minara who gave his life on 9/11/01 so that others would be saved, I deserve to have full accountability for the tragedy that affected me and thousands of people."
Paula A. Minara

"Nothing can ease the pain of losing our son, Stewart Harris, in this horrific tragedy. We, as parents, are entitled to know all the actual facts. This report MUST be released."
Mildred & R. Jay Harris

"'Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.' In loving memory of our beloved son, Nicholas C. Lassman. {Tower 1}"
Ira & Laura Lassman

"I'm a 9/11 mom who lost her only daughter, Michelle at WTC#2 & want the truth to come out."
Julie Scarpitta

"I was injured at the Pentagon. I need to know the truth."
William K. Wright

There's a sign
at the end of the road
that says
NEXT STOP:
TWILIGHT ZONE

Information Dominance, Part 10

We continue our Information Dominance series (see sidebar) by reviewing a November 24, 2005, article entitled A 9/11 tip-off: Fact or fancy?

I reproduce the entire article with my comments interspersed; the article also has a timeline as an addendum, which I did not reproduce.

Debate still swirls around claims that secret military program ID'd hijackers a year before attacks.

WASHINGTON - It's either the grandest conspiracy since the JFK assassination and the grassy knoll or much ado about nothing.

Immediately, we start out with that C-word.

Able Danger, a top-secret military program set up in 1999 to probe the al-Qaida terrorist network, is rekindling fierce debate about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Military intelligence officers and contractors who ran the clandestine mission, a computer data-mining operation within the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, claim that more than a year before the attacks, Able Danger identified four of the plot's 19 hijackers and produced a chart that fingered ringleader Mohamed Atta, displayed a photo of him and contained the names of up to 60 al-Qaida operatives around the globe.

The program also identified Condoleeza Rice in connection to proliferation of sensitive military technology to China. (See Part 4 and especially Part 9.) It is that connection that will be explored beginning in Part 11.

Those claims contradict the findings of the 9/11 commission set up by Congress, which in its final report last year spread blame for the attacks across the government but concluded that none of the 19 hijackers, some of whom had lived in the United States for months before Sept. 11, was identified until after the tragedy.

More accurately, the 9/11 Commission contradicted the information on Able Danger. It also contradicted the information supplied by Sibel Edmonds, information which had been verified at least in part -- and never contradicted or disproven -- by CBS 60 Minutes, US Senators and the US Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General. I have heard, but been unable to confirm, that the 60 Minutes information was retroactively classified. So many other things in the Sibel Edmonds case have been retroactively classified that I consider that credible.

Kristen Breitweiser, a New Jersey woman whose husband died in the World Trade Center's south tower, said she and other relatives of some of the 2,986 Sept. 11 victims have met with the military officers who worked on Able Danger, which the Pentagon ended in early 2001.

"It's very upsetting to hear people tell you that your husband and the father of your children didn't have to die because we had information to stop the attacks," Breitweiser said in an interview.

See also my Phoenix series (links in sidebar) about actionable information that was not acted upon. The series and the label are named after the famous Phoenix memo (although there are other reasons for that title as well), images of which I reproduce in the series. That series also has images of other declassified government documents, especially FBI materials, relating to 9/11.

Part of the problem in untangling the Able Danger web is that the computer-based program was designed to search open source documents - everything in the public domain - for patterns and links among al-Qaida terrorists, but the program as a whole was classified.

So, while at least some of its original material was public, it became secret after entering an Able Danger database.

Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and former Able Danger operative who first came forward with details of the program, says Pentagon lawyers thwarted the team's attempts to pass on their findings to the FBI before the attacks. And he claims that after the attacks, staff members of the 9/11 panel met with him and other Able Danger officers, but then failed to adequately pursue their leads.

"The 9/11 commission may not have 'connected the dots' as completely as they could and should have - and that is my concern and the concern of others working this issue," Shaffer said in an e-mail to Sept. 11 family members before the Pentagon issued a gag order two months ago, forbidding him and other former Able Danger officers from discussing the program publicly.

This is what is interesting.

If there was a mistake, why the gag order? The Bush Administration, and specifically then-Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, issued this gag order, preventing these military officers from answering questions to Congress about a program that was supposedly terminated under Clinton.

It is similar to the Sibel Edmonds case, where Congress, whose job is oversight of the Executive Branch, allowed itself to be gagged right along with Edmonds.

Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, who led the Able Danger mission, said in a statement before the Pentagon gag order: "My story is consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger by January-February of 2000."

After initial refusals to comment, Pentagon officials have acknowledged that Able Danger existed. Army Maj. Eric Kleinsmith told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 21 that he had complied with orders to destroy 2.4 terabytes of computer data produced by Able Danger - 2,400 gigabytes, or about one-quarter the size of all the books in the Library of Congress.

Kleinsmith and other Pentagon officials have cited privacy laws, which they say prohibit the government from maintaining secret files on U.S. citizens or noncitizens in the country on legal visas.

Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican with extensive foreign affairs experience, has taken up the Able Danger officers' cause. Calling Able Danger "the most important story of my lifetime," Weldon last Friday sent Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a letter signed by 246 lawmakers, split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats, demanding that the program's officers and contractors be allowed to testify in open congressional hearings.

"Further refusal ... can only lead us to conclude that the Department of Defense is uncomfortable with the prospect of members of Congress questioning these individuals about the circumstances surrounding Able Danger," the letter stated. "This would suggest not a concern for national security, but rather an attempt to prevent potentially embarrassing facts from coming to light."

Therein lies the key.

Sibel Edmonds points out that the government officials are not protecting sensitive national security information, but rather criminal conduct by government officials. The criminal conduct deals with proliferation of sensitive military technology, including nuclear secrets. It also connects to narcotics trafficking and international terrorism, which is increasingly funded through organized crime activities since the end of the Cold War.

A key link in all this is the Turkish Deep State, which is the name given to a cartel of Turkish political, military and government leaders who are connected with business interests and narcotraffickers. It is this link that got Edmonds, a native speaker of Turkish, involved as she was tasked to translate FBI materials from Turkish. It was also this link that caused Edmonds herself to be targeted for recruitment into this espionage web: see Sibel Edmonds and the Attack of the TiNRATs, Part 1 and the post on the 60 Minutes transcript.

In a speech on the House floor last month, Weldon said the Able Danger saga is more important than the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon.

"I am not a conspiracy theorist, but there is something desperately wrong," he said. "There is something outrageous at work here. This is not a third-rate burglary of a political campaign headquarters. This involved what is right now the covering-up of information that led to the deaths of 3,000 people, changed the course of history, led to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and has disrupted our country, our economy and people's lives."

For some interesting reading on this, go to the other parts of the Information Dominance series (see sidebar), where I review the Congressional testimony on this matter, with a focus on Congressman Weldon's testimony.

Weldon also accuses the Pentagon of engaging in a smear campaign against Shaffer, 42, since the colonel went public, by revoking his security clearance, suspending him and leaking alleged details from his personnel file to reporters and congressional aides. Among the slurs, Weldon says, are claims that Shaffer was having an affair with a Weldon aide - which Shaffer's attorney vehemently denies, that he sought reimbursement for personal cell phone calls, and even that he stole pens from a U.S. embassy where his father was based when Shaffer was 15 years old.

The smear campaign was a standard tactic of the Clinton Administration, only then it targeted women who had been harassed by Bill. Now, under the Bush Administration, the targets are whistleblowers exposing government corruption that predates the Bush Administration. Consequently, not all of the Clinton Administration's scandals came out during the Clinton years, but some have instead been continued during the Bush Administration.

Same scandals, different President.

What are they doing in Washington that neocon Republicans and liberal Democrats can agree to cover up? It must be very embarassing... and very profitable!

"There is something desperately wrong when a military officer (Shaffer) risks his life in Afghanistan time and again, embedded with our troops under an assumed name with a false beard and a false identity ... gets castigated, gets ridiculed, gets some low-life scum at the Pentagon spreading malicious lies about this individual," Weldon told fellow lawmakers.

In response to a request by Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego-area Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Department's inspector general is investigating the alleged smear campaign against Shaffer.

In the Senate, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accused the Pentagon of possible "obstruction of the committee's activities" after the Defense Department forbade Shaffer, Philpott and other Able Danger analysts from testifying before the panel. Specter and Pentagon officials are negotiating conditions for an open hearing.

"The American people are entitled to some answers," Specter said. "It is not a matter of attaching blame. It is a matter of correcting errors so that we don't have a repetition of 9/11."

Both Democrats and Republicans have asked for answers from the Administration, but the scandal involves both Democrats and Republicans. As the Edmonds case points out, people on both sides of the aisle are taking bribes -- and Dennis Hastert's name has come up.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, meanwhile, has heard closed-door testimony from Able Danger members and Pentagon employees, and it is nearing completion of a report.

The gag is not just to protect sensitive national security information, as that could be protected in classified, closed-door hearings.

Weldon is an unlikely Pentagon antagonist. Since first being elected to the House in 1986, he has been a defense hawk, consistently pushing for larger Pentagon budgets and new programs. Weldon speaks Russian, has led dozens of congressional delegations to Russia and the former Soviet Union, and has traveled to Libya, North Korea and other countries to deliver stern messages to dictators.

It's not about some liberal bashing the defense establishment.

Weldon's crusade on Able Danger, though, has drawn derision in some quarters, even from some current or former lawmakers who have known him for years.

"By the way he talks about Able Danger these days, you'd think it would have prevented Pearl Harbor," said Timothy Roemer, a former Indiana Republican congressman and member of the 9/11 commission.

They could have prevented 9/11, but someone didn't want to. See my posts under the label The Killing.

Lee Hamilton, a former Indiana Democratic lawmaker who co-chaired the 9/11 panel, said he worked closely with and respects Weldon because the two shared interests in defense and intelligence matters.

But he said the commission investigated the Able Danger officers' claims exhaustively and could not find evidence to support them.

"We've asked for that chart repeatedly," Hamilton said in an interview. "The Pentagon cannot produce it, the White House cannot produce it, and Weldon cannot produce it."

That's because the chart and all related information were ordered destroyed during the Clinton years. My bet is that the higher-ups were appalled when Able Danger started connecting people like Condoleeza Rice to Chinese proliferation.

But, the information was seen as valuable, and at least some of it was kept....

Breitweiser said she is confident additional facts about Able Danger will emerge.

Oh, they will. They are. :)

"As more and more information is coming out, more and more Americans are questioning how this attack could have happened," Breitweiser said. "We're finding out we are not being told the truth. A lot of information was known, and the attacks could have been prevented."

Stay tuned! :)

Sibel Edmonds and the Attack of the TiNRATs, Part 2 of 2

Continued from Part 1

Edmonds was later to see the scope of the Pakistani connections when it was revealed that one of her fellow translators at the FBI was the daughter of a Pakistani embassy official who worked for Ahmad. The translator was given top secret clearance despite protests from FBI investigators.

Most of the agents are brave, loyal, dedicated, hard-working, honest... some of them are flat-out brilliant. But, there are a few dirty ones in key places that have the Federal Bureau of Investigation crippled at critical moments.

This is not about bureaucratic empire-building.

Edmonds says packages containing nuclear secrets were delivered by Turkish operatives, using their cover as members of the diplomatic and military community, to contacts at the Pakistani embassy in Washington.

This is the same Turkish Deep State that moves drugs in official Turkish government vehicles, and distributes them throughout Europe via corrupt Turkish officials with diplomatic credentials. I have written about this extensively.

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks.

Edmonds said the State Department official once again proved useful. "A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, 'We need to get them out of the US because we can't afford for them to spill the beans'," she said. "The official said that he would 'take care of it'."

(Shhh... don't ask about those "beans". You will be labeled a "truther" and disavowed by all your "sane friends". We all know Al Qaeda acted alone, and we all know what happened. We do not need an investigation. The same is true about the Bhutto assassination.)

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents.

"The people provided lists of potential moles from Pentagon-related institutions who had access to databases concerning this information," she said.

"The handlers, who were part of the diplomatic community, would then try to recruit those people to become moles for the network. The lists contained all their 'hooking points', which could be financial or sexual pressure points, their exact job in the Pentagon and what stuff they had access to."

Standard operations for espionage -- no big deal here, except that they're getting away with it.

You know, that phrase... "sexual pressure points".... Now, I don't mean to be making any accusations with this remark, but... does that remind you of any past Presidents?

One of the Pentagon figures under investigation was Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst, who was jailed in 2006 for passing US defence information to lobbyists and sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.

"He was one of the top people providing information and packages during 2000 and 2001," she said.

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder.

Edmonds said: "Certain greedy Turkish operators would make copies of the material and look around for buyers. They had agents who would find potential buyers."

In summer 2000, Edmonds says the FBI monitored one of the agents as he met two Saudi Arabian businessmen in Detroit to sell nuclear information that had been stolen from an air force base in Alabama. She overheard the agent saying: "We have a package and we’re going to sell it for $250,000."

Did you know that Saudi Arabia has access to nuclear weapons? I have touched on this in the past, and will address it more thoroughly in future installments of The Islamic Bomb. For now, read The Islamic Bomb, Part 2.

Edmonds's employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI's methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing.

You can read about the Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (DOJ/OIG) report and about Edmonds' interview with 60 Minutes, as well as other stuff, at these links:

Letters from Senators

Excerpts of DOJ/OIJ Report

Sibel Edmonds on 60 Minutes

State Secrets Privilege

She was able to discuss the case with The Sunday Times because, by the end of January 2002, the justice department had shut down the programme.

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds's allegations: "If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this."

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds's story.

One of the CIA sources confirmed that the Turks had acquired nuclear secrets from the United States and shared the information with Pakistan and Israel. "We have no indication that Turkey has its own nuclear ambitions. But the Turks are traders. To my knowledge they became big players in the late 1990s," the source said.

How Pakistan got the bomb, then sold it to the highest bidders

1965 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan's foreign minister, says: "If India builds the bomb we will eat grass . . . but we will get one of our own"

1974 Nuclear programme becomes increased priority as India tests a nuclear device

1976 Abdul Qadeer Khan, a scientist, steals secrets from Dutch uranium plant. Made head of his nation's nuclear programme by Bhutto, now prime minister

1976 onwards Clandestine network established to obtain materials and technology for uranium enrichment from the West

1985 Pakistan produces weapons-grade uranium for the first time

1989-91 Khan's network sells Iran nuclear weapons information and technology

1991-97 Khan sells weapons technology to North Korea and Libya

1998 India tests nuclear bomb and Pakistan follows with a series of nuclear tests. Khan says: "I never had any doubts I was building a bomb. We had to do it"

2001 CIA chief George Tenet gathers officials for crisis summit on the proliferation of nuclear technology from Pakistan to other countries

2001 Weeks before 9/11, Khan's aides meet Osama Bin Laden to discuss an Al-Qaeda nuclear device

2001 After 9/11 proliferation crisis becomes secondary as Pakistan is seen as important ally in war on terror

2003 Libya abandons nuclear weapons programme and admits acquiring components through Pakistani nuclear scientists

2004 Khan placed under house arrest and confesses to supplying Iran, Libya and North Korea with weapons technology. He is pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf

2006 North Korea tests a nuclear bomb

2007 Renewed fears that bomb may fall into hands of Islamic extremists as killing of Benazir Bhutto throws country into turmoil

One of the comments to the article is interesting:

Of course, anyone who does a Google with "Sibel Edmonds" and "State Department official" will find one name emerging:

Mark Grossman

Mike Mejia, Tucker, GA

If this is the Mike Mejia, he is an author who has done research on the Sibel Edmonds case, and is well-connected to other Sibelologists. I take his word, and the word of other Sibelologists, for it: It's Grossman, only his first name is spelled with a "c" -- Marc Grossman.

See also Sibel Edmonds case: Front page of the (UK) papers (finally) and SIBEL EDMONDS SPEAKS TO UK SUNDAY TIMES: SAYS U.S. OFFICIALS INVOLVED IN RELEASE OF NUKE SECRETS TO TURKEY, PAKISTAN, IRAN, OTHERS, POSSIBLY EVEN AL-QAEDA.

In finishing, let me just point out that Al Qaeda has been very cozy with the Taliban.

But, who set up the Taliban?

Well, we are examining that question beginning with Genesis, Part 1. Hopefully, the answer will not suprise you.

Birds of a feather?


Yes, indeed.

Gagging Sibel Edmonds and others, and shutting down investigations, is only one way to guard these criminal secrets, but there is nothing they can do about the other approach to the secrets of the Shadow Realm, so they leave TiNRATs as guards.

But, to anyone brave enough to take on the TiNRATs... well, as they say, The Truth is Out There.

So, you ask: What are TiNRATs?

"They'll Never Read All That."

Ah, but what if someone does?

Sibel Edmonds and the Attack of the TiNRATs, Part 1 of 2

This is a not-unexpected event. Thanks to Aurora for the tip that the game is now afoot.

From The Times Online is an article entitled For sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets, January 6, 2008, which I reproduce in its entirety, with commentary and links.

A WHISTLEBLOWER has made a series of extraordinary claims about how corrupt government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to steal nuclear weapons secrets.

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency's Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

The passage speaks of "a network of moles".

People are recruited for the positions they are in.

For example, foreign service and military officers could be recruited based on the jobs they do, perhaps overseas in an embassy or on a military base. Alternately, political appointees may be recruited -- ambassadors or officials in the State or Defense Departments.

Once recruited, they help recruit others -- this is addressed farther down in the article.

Also, when a position deemed important to the cartel (my word in this post for the network of bad guys) comes available, the cartel pulls strings to steer the job in the direction of one of its people who is already on the take.

As such, strategic bases are covered, and when an opening comes up, key players are moved to that position.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: "He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."

This is called treason. Edmonds has on previous occasions pointed out that these traitors have to earn now, on the government payroll, the rewards they will get later from their foreign puppet-masters.

When Edmonds herself was the target of a recruitment attempt, her position as a translator was deemed strategic. She was told that all she needed to do was tell certain people where she worked, and she would be accepted as a member of their organization. That done, she would be set for life.

It is implicitly understood that she would have to do as her colleague Melek Can Dickerson, who attempted to recruit her, was doing: take the tapes and papers the FBI had and mark them as uninteresting and impertinent, thus covering for the activities of the American Turkish Council, and other organizations, which were conducting the espionage and which were the objects of the surveillance.

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

"If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials," she said.

It's not just information that the FBI has, much of which is classified. There are vast quantities of publicly-available information that, if sifted through, correlated, and studied, would serve to get some good, solid indictments against a wide range of VIPs.

As such, Sibel Edmonds is only one lead, and as a lead, she takes us into the land of the TiNRATs, only she takes us in as a guide, and can get us inside a good distance.

But, anyone who wishes to, can explore the Shadow Realm; one has to brave the TiNRATs, and perhaps be willing to face them without a guide.

Her story shows just how much the West was infiltrated by foreign states seeking nuclear secrets. It illustrates how western government officials turned a blind eye to, or were even helping, countries such as Pakistan acquire bomb technology.

The wider nuclear network has been monitored for many years by a joint Anglo-American intelligence effort. But rather than shut it down, investigations by law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and Britain's Revenue & Customs have been aborted to preserve diplomatic relations.

This is exactly what happened in the Sibel Edmonds case: it was shut down to preserve diplomatic and business relations. The tool was something called State Secrets Privilege.

But, Edmonds has not been the only target of this tool. The Bush Administration has used it quite extensively.

Obviously, they are covering up something big -- something beyond what the Clinton Administration used to cover up just by obstructing justice.

Edmonds, a fluent speaker of Turkish and Farsi, was recruited by the FBI in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Her previous claims about incompetence inside the FBI have been well documented in America.

Incompetence? But of course, that is what they would plead.

But are they really incompetent?

The world-renowned Federal Bureau of Investigation, that famous federal agency that "always gets its man"... incompetent?

Or, riddled with traitors -- agents of foreign powers who occupy key positions?

She has given evidence to closed sessions of Congress and the 9/11 commission, but many of the key points of her testimony have remained secret. She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities' failure to act.

The 9/11 Commission buried much more than the skeletons in the closet that Sibel Edmonds wanted to expose.

This is much bigger than just Sibel Edmonds.

In fact, it is too big to hide.

One of Edmonds's main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

At a time when FBI agents in the field were frantically working on leads associated with 9/11, and urgently needed translations of wiretaps and documents, Edmonds had been told to work slowly, and allow the backlog to increase. This would give the FBI more leverage for budget battles, to hire more people, it was explained.

But, of course, the real crimes -- bribery, treason, accessory to mass murder, accessory to terrorist acts, accessory to espionage -- were hidden behind this cover story of bureaucratic empire-building. An official might go to prison if the real crimes were exposed; indeed, the public would be demanding executions, far more vehemently than in Timothy McVeigh's case. But, who would go to prison for bureaucratic empire-building? So, the cover story is all-important as a line of defense -- just in case someone gets past the TiNRATs that are guarding the periphery of the Shadow Realm.

"What I found was damning," she said. "While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on."

The Turks and Israelis had planted "moles" in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. "The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States," she said.

The A. Q. Khan network comes to mind here -- see my posts under the label The Islamic Bomb.

But, beyond that, notice something of which I have been aware, but have not extensively addressed in my blog: the role of the Israelis.

Certain elements in Israel are in very tight with Turkey, and, in principle, there is nothing wrong with that. It is refreshing to see a Muslim country have friendly relations with Israel.

Isn't it?

But, just as there are criminals and traitors in the United States who do not have the best interests of America at heart... and just as there are criminals and traitors in Turkey who do not have the best interests of Turkey at heart....

Might there be such people in Israeli circles? People who would sell Israel out, providing nuclear weapons to those who announce a desire to use them to obliterate Israel?

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

It is important, reading this, to recall that Able Danger, while reviewing unclassified, open-source information about Al Qaeda, identified the name of a prominent figure at Stanford University in connection with proliferation to China. That person left Stanford in late 2000 to become the National Security Advisor for the Bush-43 Administration, and is now the Secretary of State. (See Information Dominance, Part 4.)

If the Secretary of State has been involved in proliferation to China all these years, and if all these years the Bush Administration has been gagging Sibel Edmonds, then the dirt goes straight to the top of the Bush Administration.

The 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, and his Vice President, Dick Cheney, are in this up to their eyeballs; they are in bed with those who pass nuclear secrets to rogue nations, against which they then wish to make war over those nuclear programs; they are in bed with terrorists and narcotraffickers and arms-smugglers.

Bush is best friends with the royal family of Saudi Arabia, the nation from which most of the 9/11 hijackers came but the nation which has not yet been held accountable. Bush has extensive business ties with the Bin Laden family, of whom Osama is supposedly the "black sheep". Bush has extensive ties with Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, the Libel Terrorist, who seeks to sue into silence those who expose the funding of terrorism, thereby imposing upon us a legal sharia and forcing us to submit to the will of the mujahideen (see sidebar widget about Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld).

In one conversation Edmonds heard the official arranging to pick up a $15,000 cash bribe. The package was to be dropped off at an agreed location by someone in the Turkish diplomatic community who was working for the network.

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: "I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more."

One official who received a great deal of cash is supposed to be none other than Dennis Hastert. Do you know that name?

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

Has this ever been investigated?

Mostly everyone familiar with how things work agrees that the events of 9/11 could not be orchestrated without the support of the intelligence services of a nation-state.

And, the ISI is reputedly a world-class organization.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan's nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. "We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda," a former CIA officer said last week. "There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end."

I pointed out the A. Q. Khan - Al Qaeda connection at the beginning of The Islamic Bomb, Part 3.

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan.

And that is why the Bush Administration never insisted that Khan be made available to international investigators: he knows where the trail leads. In one direction, it leads to his Axis of Evil, Tehran and Pyongyang; and it leads back to Condoleezza Rice and others in Washington, and ultimately to himself and his VP, in the other direction. See The Islamic Bomb, Part 1.

Continued in Part 2.

Information Dominance, Part 9

We continue from Part 8 reviewing The Writing on "The Wall" (by Thomas Ryan, FrontPageMagazine.com, August 22, 2005); if you haven't already read Part 8, you may want to.

Possible Motives

Able Danger's intelligence on Atta was dismissed not only in 2000, but was ignored a second time in 2003 by the 9/11 Commission. In their article "9/11 Coverup Commission," Ben Johnson and Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu made the following observation:

Recent revelations about covert 'Able Danger' operations are forcing certain people to deal with subjects that they had thought swept under the rug. Despite apparent attempts to conceal the fact, the 9/11 Commission has had to admit it was informed that government agents knew of Mohammed Atta's affiliation with al-Qaeda two years before 9/11, that Clinton-era policies prevented intelligence officials from sharing that information with the FBI, that the amended time frame would allow Mohammed Atta to have made contacts with Iraqi intelligence, and – most damningly – that it kept all this out of its final report.

So, it was Clinton's fault. The reason "The Wall" was reinforced, beyond any legal requirement, was to keep counterintelligence from passing to criminal investigators information it had on Clinton's sale of missile technology to Communist China for contributions to Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign (see Part 8).

That "Wall" also kept the Army Information Dominance Center from passing what it had learned about Al Qaeda to the FBI, thus costing us an excellent opportunity to catch the terrorists and prevent the attack.

But, when this information was presented to the 9/11 Commission, the information was buried.

Here someone was asking why.

What could explain such a seemingly egregious lapse in judgment? To answer this, we must consider the role of President Clinton's Deputy Attorney General, Jamie Gorelick, in the 9/11 Commission. Gorelick, who (as noted earlier) authorized the creation of the communication wall between intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, was also a member of the 9/11 Commission. Thus a key individual who should have been testifying before the Commision was, instead, one of its sitting members. The seemingly inescapable conclusion is that Gorelick prevented the 9/11 Commission from including the Able Danger information so as to protect herself and the Clinton legacy from the condemnation they deserve.

Clintonite obstruction of justice on the 9/11 Commission to cover up past criminal conduct, which itself included obstruction of justice and a cover-up, as well as influence-peddling, bribery and treason...?

A second possibility is that any reference to the Able Danger intelligence was omitted (from the 9/11 Commission report) because it seemed to suggest that Iraq was somehow involved in planning or funding the 9/11 attacks. Such a revelation would constitute a deathblow to the argument that the Iraq War was unjustified because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or terrorist threats against the United States. Admitting that the Able Danger intelligence, like the Czech intelligence, placed Atta at a meeting with an Iraqi agent in Prague on April 9, 2001 would strongly suggest that al-Qaeda and Iraq had worked in unison on the attacks. This conclusion would not sit well with the political enemies of George W. Bush. Of this possibility, Ben Johnson and Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu write in FrontPage:

If there was, in fact, covert direction from the top of the Commission to key members of its staff to cloak any link between Saddam and the September 11 attacks, to obfuscate evidence tying the Iraqi regime to al-Qaeda and Mohammed Atta, and to paint the most positive possible picture of the Clintons as implacable terror-warriors, then "Able Danger" had to be ignored and covered up...

By acknowledging the Iraq/al-Qaeda ties, not only to terrorism in general but to the September 11 attack, the war becomes completely justifiable as exactly what the Bush administration claimed it was: a defensive, if preemptive, war to protect the United States from a regime with cordial ties to anti-American terrorists.

Or an effort to put partisan politics ahead of foreign policy, so Bush could be bashed?

Congress had already given King George all the authority he needed for his war in Iraq; besides which, most of the Democrats that are criticizing Bush for the Iraq war now voted for it then.

Would the Clintonites put partisan politics ahead of the best interests of the United States? Oh, yes, and they did so many times. Was that the problem here, though?

Dismantling the Wall: The USA Patriot Act

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. House and Senate set about to create legislation that would provide new tools in combating the terrorist threat facing our country. On October 26, 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed, and with it new regulations regarding intelligence gathering were enacted, as well as new parameters that would pave the way for criminal investigators and intelligence agencies to cooperate on international terrorism cases. In March of 2002, the Justice Department asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, which was responsible for the formation of the wall in 1978, to consent to new procedures that would, in effect, dismantle it. The Justice Department affirmed that the USA Patriot Act mandated such an action, and today, because of it, collaboration on vital anti-terrorism initiatives is occurring between different agencies.

So, Clintonites caused the problem, and the Bush Administration solved it, right?

Sibel Edmonds, on the other hand, has been telling us that people in Washington are abusing the system to cover up their own criminal activity -- and this had been going on for years as of 2002, when she was fired from the FBI as a contract translator, and we know this continues today with the ongoing gag order on her by the Bush Administration.

In his April 2004 testimony before the 9/11 Commission, Attorney General John Ashcroft said that by the end of the Clinton Administration, "the Justice Department was so addicted to the wall, it actually opposed legislation to lower the wall. Finally, the USA Patriot Act tore down this wall between our intelligence and law enforcement personnel in 2001. And when the Patriot Act was challenged, the FISA Court of Review upheld the law, ruling that the 1995 guidelines were required by neither the Constitution nor the law."

The way in which the Patriot Act succeeded in dismantling the wall was a simple change in the language of the law. Prior to the Patriot Act, FISA warrants were issued only when it could be demonstrated that the "primary purpose" of a particular surveillance was the collection of foreign intelligence information. The Patriot Act changed the language of the warrant to read as "significant purpose." This simple modification purged the divider that existed between threats classified as foreign in nature and those that were classified as domestic crimes.

Jamie Gorelick, who played such a key role in the formation and reinforcement of that wall, has criticized the Patriot Act. At an October 2004 symposium titled, "Pursuing Justice and the War on Terrorism," Gorelick remarked that "the President had yet to prove the effectiveness of the Patriot Act and other controversial national security legislation," and that the Bush Administration "has also failed to show that there exist proper checks and balances to curb its expanded powers."

Although critics of the Patriot Act regularly portray it as a threat to civil liberties and decry that no proper checks and balances are in place to restrain it, its merits in the post-9/11 world are unquestionable. With regard to abuses of civil liberties, the Justice Department's Inspector General, who monitors the ACT in an effort to prevent such abuses, has reported that none have yet occurred. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein agrees, stating, "I have never had a single abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me. My staff...asked [the ACLU] for instances of actual abuses. They...said they had none." Prior to 9/11, and because of the efforts of the Clinton Administration, the nation's intelligence and law-enforcement agencies were barred from sharing information with one another. The Patriot Act removed that barrier, and because of it, terrorist cells in Portland, Oregon; Lackawanna, New York; and Virginia were uncovered and eliminated.

Looking Ahead

The 9/11 Commission's decision to exclude any mention of Able Danger from its report merits an aggressive and immediate inquiry. As things now appear, corrupt politics enabled the 9/11 hijackers to carry out their horrifying mission. Compounding the sin, the very Commission entrusted with the task of shedding light on what led to 9/11 appears to be engaged in a cover-up that is a slap in the face to the grieving loved ones of 9/11's victims.

[End of article -- YD]

So, it was a bureaucratic rule, excessively strengthened by the Clinton Administration to cover up Slick Willie's own treasonous conduct -- selling missile technology to Beijing in exchange for money for Clinton and the Democrats in 1996 -- and the Bush Administration was the hero.

And any one of us from the conservative side of the house will believe that -- water is wet, fire is hot, and Clinton is a treasonous criminal; we know these things.

Except for one thing: why did the Bush Administration, days after this article was published, gag all military officers who were familiar with Able Danger and prevent them from testifying before Congress the following month?

What is there to hide, if it was a problem from the previous Administration that had been corrected?

Remember the words from the hearing: "Lieutenant Colonel Shaffer ... is under Rumsfeld's gag order".

Okay, so Bush didn't want to drag his predecessor through the mud; Bush is honest, Clinton is not, but Bush is taking the high road, and not exposing Clinton's treason. An accomplice after the fact is what that makes somebody.

But, why?

Recall that Able Danger, looking at Al Qaeda via open-source material, connected Condoleeza Rice to Chinese proliferation, too:

Representative Weldon. There were a combination of reasons. They had done a profile of Chinese proliferation in 1999 that John Hamre had asked for. I was aware of that presentation, and because it was massive data mined that had not yet been vetted, a couple of very sensitive names surfaced because they had been affiliated with Stanford University, where many of the students that were doing this very, very specific research, very sensitive to our country's security, were located, and I think partly because of that, there was a wave of controversy.

[snip]

Senator Biden. Is there anything to the sort of, when you get into this, the sort of buzz that it was shut down because Able Danger exceeded its authority and was dealing with targeting Americans that the Defense Department and others were concerned would cause a real brouhaha? There were even some press accounts that the now-Secretary of State came up on a list as being a suspect somehow, or something ridiculous. What part did that play in it?

Representative Weldon. It was a significant part. In fact--

The "now-Secretary of State" would be Condoleeza Rice, formerly of Stanford University. She was there from -- what was it? -- 1981 to December 17, 2000, when she stepped down from her position at Stanford to serve in the Bush-43 Administration. She served as Provost, chief budget and academic officer, and full professor.

(See also Part 7.)

Then, was it not the Bush Administration that snubbed the Congressional hearing on the A. Q. Khan nuclear proliferation network? Was it not Bush, and his "now-Secretary of State" that failed to pressure Pakistan into making Khan available to answer some questions for international investigators of nuclear proliferation?

Recall how close Pakistan is to China, and how Pakistan is sharing its nuclear weapons with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is Bush's buddy, and Rice was connected to proliferation to China.

It is also interesting to recall how then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice had not imagined "that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile", when we know this idea had been circulating in the intelligence community for years, and that the President's Secret Service detail was supposedly warned about this very possibility in late August, 2001.

The highest levels of the Bush Administration know and have known for some time a great deal more than what they let on, and have been consistently obstructing any line of inquiry that might make a connection.

Are they covering up their own treasonous, criminal conduct?