Sibel Edmonds - Gagged US Whistleblower

I'd like to introduce you to Sibel Edmonds... founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC).

Why is her story important?

Because... Ms. Edmonds alleges treason and corruption at the highest levels of government.

Why should we care?

Because... Every effort was made by high-ranking officials of the Bush administration to keep her quiet... her allegations have not been disproven.

Why have I never heard of her before?

Because... Even though they know, MSNBC, PBS, The New York Times, The Washington Times, ABC and CBS all remain silent.

Below are excerpts and links to articles chosen for their informative value. I hope you decide to educate yourself and inform others.

Information – Education - Participation - That is how we effect change!

Articles

Who's Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
The American Conservative - November 01, 2009 Issue

“...fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.”

“Grossman assisted his Turkish and Israeli contacts directly, and he also facilitated access to members of Congress who might be inclined to help for reasons of their own or could be bribed into cooperation. The top person obtaining classified information was Congressman Tom Lantos.”

“...we also had Pentagon officials doing the same thing. We were looking at Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. They had a list of individuals in the Pentagon broken down by access to certain types of information. Some of them would be policy related, some of them would be weapons-technology related, some of them would be nuclear-related. Perle and Feith would provide the names of those Americans, officials in the Pentagon, to Grossman, together with highly sensitive personal information: this person is a closet gay; this person has a chronic gambling issue; this person is an alcoholic.”

“He also took care of some other people, including his contact at the New York Times. Grossman would brag, “We just fax to our people at the New York Times. They print it under their names.”

“The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil.”

“The number-one congressman involved with the Turkish community, both in terms of providing information and doing favors, was Bob Livingston. Number-two after him was Dan Burton, and then he became number-one until Hastert became the speaker of the House.”

“...and in 2000, another representative was added to the list, Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic congresswoman from Illinois. Turkish agents started gathering information on her, and they found out that she was bisexual.” “They needed Schakowsky and her husband Robert Creamer to perform certain illegal operational facilitations for them in Illinois. They already had Hastert, the mayor, and several other Illinois state senators involved. ”

“There were bin Ladens, with the help of Pakistanis or Saudis, under our management. Marc Grossman was leading it, 100 percent, bringing people from East Turkestan into Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan to Azerbaijan, from Azerbaijan some of them were being channeled to Chechnya, some of them were being channeled to Bosnia. From Turkey, they were putting all these bin Ladens on NATO planes. People and weapons went one way, drugs came back.”

“A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.”

“John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows.”

“As soon as Obama became president, he showed us that the State Secrets Privilege was going to continue to be a tool of choice. It’s an arcane executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing—in many cases, criminal activities. And the Obama administration has not only defended using the State Secrets Privilege, it has been trying to take it even further than the previous terrible administration by maintaining that the U.S. government has sovereign immunity. This is Obama’s change: his administration seems to think it doesn’t even have to invoke state secrets as our leaders are emperors who possess this sovereign immunity. This is not the kind of language that anybody in a democracy would use.”

“The other thing I noticed is how Chicago, with its culture of political corruption, is central to the new administration. When I saw that Obama’s choice of chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, knowing his relationship with Mayor Richard Daley and with the Hastert crowd, I knew we were not going to see positive changes. Changes possibly, but changes for the worse. It was no coincidence that the Turkish criminal entity’s operation centered on Chicago.”

Lost in Translation
60 Minutes - Aug. 8, 2004

“This is the story of hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign language documents that the FBI neglected to translate before and after the Sept. 11 attacks -- documents that detailed what the FBI heard on wiretaps and learned during interrogations of suspected terrorists.”

“Edmonds was fired after reporting her concerns to FBI officials. She told her story behind closed doors to investigators in Congress and to the Justice Department. Most recently, she spoke with the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.”

“Edmonds says that to her amazement, from the day she started the job, she was told repeatedly by one of her supervisors that there was no urgency,- that she should take longer to translate documents so that the department would appear overworked and understaffed.”

“Kevin Taskasen was assigned to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to translate interrogations of Turkish-speaking al Qaeda members who had been captured after Sept. 11. The FBI admits that he was not fully qualified to do the job.”

“Months before the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, one of the plotters of the attack was heard on tape having a discussion in Arabic that no one at the time knew was about how to make explosives - and he had a manual that no one at the time knew was about how to blow up buildings. None of it was translated until well after the bombing, and while the FBI has hired more translators since then, officials concede that problems in the language division have hampered the country's efforts to battle terrorism.”

“In its rush to hire more foreign language translators after Sept. 11, the FBI admits it has had difficulty performing background checks to detect translators who may have loyalties to other governments, which could pose a threat to U.S. national security.”

“Take the case of Jan Dickerson, a Turkish translator who worked with Edmonds. The FBI has admitted that when Dickerson was hired, the bureau didn't know that she had worked for a Turkish organization being investigated by the FBI's own counter-intelligence unit.”

“They also didn't know she'd had a relationship with a Turkish intelligence officer stationed in Washington who was the target of that investigation. According to Edmonds, Dickerson tried to recruit her into that organization, and insisted that Dickerson be the only one to translate the FBI's wiretaps of that Turkish official.”

“Edmonds says that when she reviewed Dickerson's translations of those tapes, she found that Dickerson had left out information crucial to the FBI's investigation - information that Edmonds says would have revealed that the Turkish intelligence officer had spies working for him inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon.”

“Despite a pledge from FBI Director Robert Mueller to overhaul the culture of the FBI in light of 9/11, and encourage bureau employees to come forward to report wrongdoing, Roberts says that in the rare instances when employees are disciplined, it's usually low-level employees like Edmonds who get punished and not their bosses.”

Sibel Edmonds: A Patriot Silenced, Unjustly Fired but Fighting Back to Help Keep America Safe
ACLU – January 26, 2005

“She was fired less than a year later in March 2002 for reporting shoddy work and security breaches to her supervisors that could have prevented those attacks.”

“Edmonds has been fighting the corruption permeating the FBI since her unfair dismissal and sued to contest her firing in July 2002.”

“On July 6, 2004 , Judge Reggie Walton in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed Edmonds' case, citing the government's state secrets privilege.”

“Even though she followed all appropriate procedures for reporting her concerns up the chain of command, Edmonds was retaliated against and fired. After her termination, many of Edmonds' allegations were confirmed by the FBI in unclassified briefings to Congress. More than two years later, in May 2004, the Justice Department retroactively classified Edmonds' briefings, as well as the FBI briefings, and forced Members of Congress who had the information posted on their Web sites to remove the documents.”

“On January 14, 2004 , the Justice Department's Office unclassified summary of the Justice Department's Inspector General's report on Edmonds found that many of her claims "were supported, that the FBI did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI's decision to terminate her services."”

SIBEL EDMONDS: THE TRAITORS AMONG US
Larry Flynt.com – March 2010

“Edmonds testified that Congressman Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), a former Speaker of the House, was involved in “several categories” of corruption on behalf of Turkish agents...”

“While several FBI sources have corroborated Edmonds’s account, the best Hastert’s attorneys could do was offer a nondenial denial to the charges.”

“...Hastert—who left Congress in 2007—now makes $35,000 a month lobbying his old colleagues as a registered foreign agent for the Turkish government.”

“According to Edmonds, Representative Roy Blunt (R-Missouri)—likely to run for a U.S. Senate seat in 2010—was “the recipient of both legally and illegally raised…campaign donations from…Turkish entities.” Edmonds also claimed that hard-right Representative Dan Burton (R-Indiana), who was instrumental in the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, carried out “extremely illegal activities” and covert operations that were “against the United States citizens” and “against the United States’ interests.””

“Additionally, Edmonds claimed that Grossman, the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey before taking his State Department post, had tipped off Turkish diplomats to the true identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson’s front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, a full three years prior to their being publicly outed by columnist Robert Novak. That in itself, according to George H.W. Bush, would be an act of treason carried out by “the most insidious of traitors.””

“...former New York Congressman Stephen Solarz, now also a lobbyist, “acted as conduit to deliver or launder contributions and other bribe[s, including blackmail] to certain members of Congress.””

“Former CIA counterterrorism officer Giraldi summed up Edmonds’s disclosures to me in blunt terms: “This was a massive coordinated espionage effort directed against United States nuclear secrets engineered by foreign agents who successfully corrupted senior government officials and legislators in our Congress. It’s that simple.””

“The mainstream U.S. media, however, apparently remain uninterested in investigating any of it.”

“...as with companies such as AIG and GM becoming “too big to fail,” the size and success of this massive national security espionage scandal has simply become too big to bust.”

“Because this thing was so big, and it affected both Democrats and Republicans, I think the U.S. government is terrified of opening up this Pandora’s box.””

““The people in Congress and in the Justice Department who should be investigating this…and also in the media—because the media is tied hand and foot to government—this is all part of one big, you know, conspiracy, if you want to look at it this way. And, essentially, this is a story that they don’t want to get out.””

““If we had an effective mainstream media that was going after this story, that would make it come out,”...”

The Players

John Ashcroft - 79th United States attorney general 2001 to 2005, President George W. Bush - Founder, The Ashcroft Group, LLC, a strategic consulting firm receiving millions in lobbying fees for products or technology aimed at homeland security.

Roy Blunt (R-MO) - House of Representatives 1996 to Present – Acting Majority Leader 2005 to 2006 - Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, Subcommittee on Health - Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Subcommittee on Intelligence Community Management, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Will seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 – Son joins the Ashcroft Group

Dan Burton (R-IN) - House of Representatives 1983 to Present - Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on Domestic Policy, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs - Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia (Ranking Member), Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere

Sibel Edmonds - Turkish-American, former FBI translator, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) - Official Site.

Douglas Feith - Under Secretary of Defense for Policy 2001 to 2005, President George W. Bush – Resigns, “Feith is clearly resigning ahead of the possible breaking of major scandals concerning his tenure at the Department of Defense, which is among the more disgraceful cases of the misleading of the American people in American history.”

Marc Grossman - United States Ambassador to Turkey 1994 to 1997, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs 1997 to 2000, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs 2001 to 2005 – Now, Vice Chairman of The Cohen Group, a Washington D.C. lobbying company headed by former U.S. Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen. States that it's principals bring "centuries of experience at the White House, the State Department, the Defense Department, and Congress" to the table and offer unparalleled experience with government and industry at the national and international levels.

Dennis Hastert (R-IL) - House of Representatives 1987 to 2007 – Speaker of the House 1999 to 2007 – Resigned in 2007 – In 2009, joins lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro "working on a $35,000-per-month contract for Turkey, according to records on file with the Justice Department."

Tom Lantos (D-CA) - House of Representatives 1981 to 2008 - Chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs - Deceased.

Bob Livingston (R-LA) - House of Representatives 1977 to 1999 – Chosen as Newt Gingrich's successor to Speaker of the House 1998, withdrew and resigned after his extramarital affairs were discovered – Founder, The Livingston Group 1999, as required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act listed its work for the Embassy of the Republic of Turkey as providing "advice to the Ambassador from the Republic of Turkey. Numerous meetings were arranged with members of Congress, staff assistants, and other U.S. Government officials to discuss issues to create a more positive environment for Turkey." Millions in fees from Turkey alone.

Richard Perle – Assistant Secretary of Defense 1981 to 1987, President Ronald Reagan – Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee 2001 to 2003, President George W. Bush, Resigned amid ethics violations - Known in Washington circles as "The Prince of Darkness," Perle is associated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century, both of which have been prominent behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration's foreign policy, in particular its push for war with Iraq.

Stephen Solarz (D-NY) - House of Representatives 1975 to 1993 - Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee – Now, member of the Intellibridge Expert Network and Vice-Chairman of International Crisis Group – Affiliated with the American Turkish Council.

Paul Wolfowitz - Ambassador to the Republic of Indonesia 1986 to 1989, President Ronald Reagan - United States Deputy Secretary of Defense 2001 to 2005, President George W. Bush - President of the World Bank in 2006, resigned in disgrace 2007 due to ethics violations - Best known to be one of the "architects" of the war against Iraq.

Additional Articles

Sibel Edmonds News Articles

U.S. Department of Justice
A Review of the FBI's Actions in Connection With Allegations Raised By Contract Linguist Sibel Edmonds

Sworn Deposition Before the Ohio Elections Committee
Where her allegations were finally made public after 7 years.

Commentary

Ms. Edmonds: “ ...how Chicago, with its culture of political corruption, is central to the new administration.” “It was no coincidence that the Turkish criminal entity’s operation centered on Chicago.” What's going on behind the scenes in the Obama administration that we don't know about?

It's easy to use drugs, the CIA and Bill Clinton in the same sentence. Why? Iran-Contra: 1983-1998, President Ronald Reagan. The CIA is shipping arms to Iran and bringing cocaine back to the U.S. through the Mena, Arkansas airport. The Governor of Arkansas - Bill Clinton.

Ms. Edmonds: “A lot of the drugs were going to Belgium with NATO planes. After that, they went to the UK, and a lot came to the U.S. via military planes to distribution centers in Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey. Turkish diplomats who would never be searched were coming with suitcases of heroin.” This is 1997-2001 time-frame. Our President - Bill Clinton.

For his post-presidential office, President Clinton chooses a location in Harlem directly across the river from Paterson, New Jersey.

Government’s moral compass has been lost. Immoral acts are justified by claims of national security. Our economic system is permeated with men acting in regard to their own self-interests, not the public good. C.Wright Mills: “The American elite is not composed of representative men whose conduct and character constitute models for American imitation and aspiration.” “There is no set of men with whom members of the mass public can rightfully and gladly identify.” “In this fundamental sense, America is indeed without leaders.”

Don't expect any help from the mainstream media. Newspapers and broadcast media have undergone a succession of mergers. The press is now controlled by corporate America who is able to exert enormous influence on the news messages we receive. Corporations exist to limit costs while producing a product that can be sold to a buyer at a profit. Print and television news sources aren’t the product, the audience is the product and advertisers the buyer. Costs are kept low by reporting stories government public relations men provide at no-charge and by limiting the resources available to remaining investigative journalists. The days of Woodard and Bernstein are gone.

What Can Be Done

Anger, distrust and frustration with the U.S. Government is on the rise.  Can Tea-Party movements remove the corrupt Republicans and Democrats who have sold us out?  Watch out for the mainstream political types who decide to join the movement, they will most likely do so for their own gain. And, their gain is our loss.

Take the money out of politics!  Ban lobbying.  Establish public funding for elections.  Pay our elected officials a modest salary and eliminate the perks... we want people who serve out of a sense of duty, not for riches, power and to be above the law.  Broadcast and print media time (including advertising) should be equal for all candidates.  Term  limits.  Let's have our representatives accountable only to us... we who elected them.

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