THE LONESOME BATTLE OF SIBEL EDMONDS

"Operating invisibly under the radar of media and public scrutiny, lobby groups and foreign agents have become the 'epicenter' of our government, where former statesmen and 'dime a dozen generals' cash in on their connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders turned clients. These groups' activities shape our nation's policies and determine the direction of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant, and the security of the nation is perceived as inconsequential."

The National Security Whistleblowers Association has recently published an article by Sibel Edmonds, entitled The Highjacking of a Nation, Part I and Part II, in which Edmonds asks Americans to consider exactly which factions or people are really governing them.

Edmonds first came to the US in 1988 from Turkey, as a student. She had intended to get an education here and return home; but she later married an American and opted to settle in this country and become a citizen. She spoke Turkish, and picked up Farsi, after spending some time as a girl in Iran, and was also fluent in Azerbaijani, a language her father spoke. And she had also mastered English, and has since that time, developed a remarkable talent as a writer in this language.

The academic achievements of Sibel Edmonds are considerable. From George Washington University she holds a BA in in Criminal Justice and Psychology, and from George Mason University, a MA in Public Policy and International Commerce.

In the Fall of 2001, after 9/11, she started to work in a sensitive intelligence department, for the FBI. The Agency desperately needed the highest quality of Turkish translation; and Edmonds was placed in a department which was monitoring subjects who were under suspicion in ongoing international criminal investigations.

Because of Edmonds' brilliance as a linguist, she was placed in the higher rank of a two-tier system that the FBI used for translations. The translation level below hers was meant for screening wiretaps and other monitored communication. If the screener found something of interest to the investigation, it would go to the higher ranked translator, for more detailed inspection. But Sibel Edmonds became aware that the FBI security was being breached, and that her assigned "screener" (a woman of Turkish extraction) was systematically obstructing evidence of wrongdoing on behalf of a person under investigation, and was not passing the intercepts up to Edmonds.

There had been an unnerving incident which triggered her suspicions. Jan Dickerson, the screener in question, and her husband, a Naval officer, had approached Edmonds and her husband socially. They suggested that the Edmonds couple join up with an organization to which the Dickersons belonged. Sibel Edmonds was paralyzed with anxiety at that moment, when she realized that she would ultimately be offered advantages of money, travel, and other opportunities, in exchange for becoming an intelligence asset for that "semi-legit organization".

In 2002, roughly a year after she hired on with the FBI, Sibel Edmonds was terminated, manhandled, and physically thrown out of the building where she worked. She had blown the whistle inside the Agency, and reported a breach of security which compromised the FBI, and exposed it to penetration by the very outfits and people it was investigating. The State Department was worried that the ensuing incident would adversely affect our diplomatic relations with a certain friendly country. John Ashcroft would eventually declare that everything about the Sibel Edmonds case was a state secret. When Edmonds took her concerns to Congress and testified behind closed doors, the blanket of secrecy was extended by Ashcroft, to cover information which was revealed in the hearings. Congress itself was gagged by a "retroactive classification" of Edmonds' testimony.

"I won't go into the details and history of my own case, where the government invoked the state secrets privilege to gag my case and the congress to 'protect certain sensitive diplomatic relations.' The country, the foreign influence, in this case was the Republic of Turkey. The U.S. government did so despite the far reaching consequences of burying the facts involved, and disregarded the interests and security of the nation; all to protect a quasi ally engaged in numerous illegitimate activities within the global terrorist networks, nuclear black-market and narcotics activities; an ally who happens to be another compulsive and loyal buyer of the Military Industrial Complex; an ally who happens to be another savvy player in recruiting top U.S. players as its foreign agents and spending millions of dollars per year to the lobbying groups headed by many 'formers.' Turkey's agent list includes generals such as Joseph Ralston and Brent Scowcroft, former statesmen such as William Cohen and Marc Grossman, and of course famous ex-congressmen such as Bob Livingston and Stephen Solarz."

What factions and interests actually govern America? It would seem that Sibel Edmonds' most startling conclusion, is that the US Military Industrial Complex has become a de facto foreign agent, because of the principle of "mutual benefit". President Eisenhower once warned us about the encroachment of the MIC into government. There is the profit-making of K-Street lobbyists representing foreign countries, added to the gains gotten by the US Weapons Industry, which are passed along to an elite, made up of former statesmen and the "dime a dozen generals". International criminal organizations that hide behind expensive business suits and government-funded corporate fronts have been facilitating this process. We are held hostage in a way by black-market crime; and at the same time the business interests that thrive on this trade in "friendly countries" see to it that their governments purchase US weapons systems.

"We know that Al Queda and Taliban's main source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics. Based on all the reports, facts, and expert statements, we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing country to Al Queda. Yet, to date, more than five years into our over exhaustive 'war on terror propaganda', have we heard any mentioning of, any tough message to, any sanction against, or any threat that was issued or targeted at Turkey?"

"For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have been prevented from making this information available and public by various gag orders and invocation of State Secrets Privilege. Why?"

"When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable; some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and lobbying groups."