Wednesday, September 20, 2006

 

AP reviewed "Kill The Messenger"

The AP in france reviewed "Kill The Messenger":
The much-awaited documentary "Kill The Messenger" is showing Tuesday on Canal+. Mathieu (Verboud) and Jean-Robert Viallet met Sibel Edmonds whose life was transformed into nightmare after her ousting from the FBI. In a 84 minute film, they deliver the impressive testimony of Sibel Edmonds.

The young woman is 32 years old when she is recruited by the FBI as a translator, four days after September 11, 2001. She is charged with translating wiretapped conversations, some related to the 9/11 attacks. Sibel Edmonds was born in Teheran from Turkish parents, and spent the first 18 years of her life in Teheran and in Turkey, before landing in the U.S and marrying an American.

But her world gets turned upside-down when she discovers that a colleague is involved with illegal activities implicating Turkish officials. The filmmakers report the rest of Sibel's story. She reports the incident to her superiors and gets fired from the FBI. After her firing, she goes to the U.S Congress. Months pass and Sibel Edmonds realizes that nobody makes the slightest move. The young woman tells her story to the media. Time has come for Attorney General John Ashcroft to classify the whole Sibel Edmonds case as a"State Secret." If the young translator continues to speak, she'll go to prison. Determined, yet powerless, Sibel Edmonds suffers two years of loneliness.

In 2003, the Bush government accepts the creation of a commission whose role is to investigate the government and intelligence failures that led to 9/11. Sibel Edmonds then will carry out a long battle in order to expose her case: Turkish spies infiltrated the FBI and the government is apparently aware of these spies. July 24, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report comes out, but Sibel's testimony is not included. The young woman is regarded as a "whistle-blower", she is joined in her fight by intelligence agents from the FBI, the CIA and NSA. The two filmmakers find leads pointing to the role of Turkey, Israel and Pakistan. In the 80's, at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S and Turkey were instrumental in helping Pakistan acquire nuclear power. Turkey appears to have acted as a back-door conduit for some of those
operations. Later on, Israel came into play, too. At the time, the CIA knew everything but turned a blind eye, even when Pakistan started selling its technology to friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya. By then, nuclear proliferation had gone out of control and the U.S let it go. In the 90's, when the Talibans were in power in Afghanistan, some nuclear equipment even landed in the hands of Usama Bin Laden.

In addition, American-Turkish Council (ATC), a powerful American lobby, has for many years facilitated trade of the weapons with the assistance of Israel. And it is in an indirect way that Sibel Edmonds denounces the secrets of these diplomats and secret agents with her superiors. In spite of this, the young translator finds herself entangled in a spy case whose ramifications are beyond the knowledge of the young woman and the TV viewer at the same time. Besides being thorough, the investigation is captivating and alarming. Sibel's case is so complex that it look like a labyrinth without exit.
Please note that this 'translation' was done by Mathieu Verboud, director of the film. He has removed two false statements - first, that Israel had helped the Pakistani nuclear program, and second, that Al Qaeda attacked on 9/11 with nuclear equipment from AQ Khan.

(updated with proper translation)

Comments:
"arrival of the talibans to the capacity"

Should read "arrival of the Taliban to power"

Woa! Is the documentary saying Usama received this arms through Turkey in the late 90s?
 
The only armaments al Qaeda used on 9-11 were box cutters and knives, right?
 
thnx miguel.

yeah - i have no idea what the reference to 911 means.

my guess is that the arms to OBL were (directly) from Pakistan.
 
A true translator does not keep out information from an article. I was going to post this site on wikipedia, but your disclaimer makes the enter article questionable.
 
Anon - thanks for your comment.

To clarify, the 'translation' was done by the director of the film, not a 'true translator' - and our goal here is to discuss the film, not to do 'true translations' - particularly if we know that the article reported false facts.

The rest of the article is fine - and you can also find other reviews here on the site.

Thanks for your interest.
 
Post a Comment



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?