Kill the Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

Part two of Sibel's "Hijacking of a Nation" is now up at NSWBC

A must read for any 'sibelologist' - she lays out the core of her case for all to see.

* Sibel has written a great op-ed "THE HIGHJACKING OF A NATION - Part 1: The Foreign Agent Factor" about the unholy alliance of the Military-Industrial-Complex and the revolving door of lobbyists, congresscritters and 'dime-a-dozen Generals'

Here's the intro:

Today, foreign influence, that most baneful foe of our republican government, has its tentacles entrenched in almost all major decision making and policy producing bodies of the U.S. government machine. It does so not secretly, since its self-serving activities are advocated and legitimized by highly positioned parties that reap the benefits that come in the form of financial gain and positions of power.

Foreign governments and foreign-owned private interests have long sought to influence U.S. public policy. Several have accomplished this goal; those who are able and willing to pay what it takes. Those who buy themselves a few strategic middlemen, commonly known as pimps, while in DC circles referred to as foreign registered agents and lobbyists, who facilitate and bring about desired transactions. These successful foreign entities have mastered the art of ‘covering all the bases’ when it comes to buying influence in Washington DC. They have the required recipe down pat: get yourself a few ‘Dime a Dozen Generals,’ bid high in the ‘former statesmen lobby auction’, and put in your pocket one or two ‘ex-congressmen turned lobbyists’ who know the ropes when it comes to pocketing a few dozen who still serve.

The most important facet of this influence to consider is what happens when the active and powerful foreign entities’ objectives are in direct conflict with our nation’s objectives and its interests and security; and when this is the case, who pays the ultimate price and how. There is no need for assumptions of hypothetical situations to answer these questions, since throughout recent history we have repeatedly faced the dire consequences of the highjacking of our foreign and domestic policies by these so-called foreign agents of foreign influence.

Let’s illustrate this with the most important recent case, the catastrophe endured by our people; the September Eleven terrorist attacks. Let’s observe how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, overrode the interests and security of the entire nation; how thousands of victims and their loved ones were kicked aside to serve the interests of a few; foreign influence and its agents.

Read the rest.

Part two of the op-ed will be published after Thanksgiving.

I found the 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley & Sibel on youtube - as luck would have it the interview was posted just last week.

RIP Ed.

UPDATE: YouTube as pulled the pieces I had linked to. I've published a snippet of the interview at youtube here. Or you can download the whole thing here(275 megs)

UPDATE 2:
Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


----------
update - miguel in the comments:

All,
This is the first time I've seen "60 Minutes: Lost In Translation" since it first aired in October, 2002. Some observations:
1. The overall emphasis in the segment is on Sibel's allegations of deliberate slowdowns and incompetent translators. The issue with Turkish espionage is thrown in near the end almost as an afterthought. We now know that the espionage/bribery was the main reason Sibel blew the whistle to Grassly and Leahy: the incompetence issues were secondary concerns.
2. The segment just starts to touch on the really explosive stuff that Sibel blew the whistle about- the content of the mistranslated documents that revealed what a "Turkish intelligence officer" was up to- at 1:54 of the 3rd segment. At this point, Sibel mentions the Turkish individual is engaged in activities to obtain "the United States military and intelligence secrets"

At this point, the camera cuts away from Sibel is still speaking in mid-sentence. Here's my guess as to what Sibel told Bradley next:
"and to corrupt certain elected officials".

She also may have thrown in something about narcotics.

Hypothesizing that Sibel said something to that effect, imagine how much more explosive that 60 Minutes segment could have been.

By the way, I hear Sibel is very saddened by Bradley's death and had enormous resepect for him. I hypothesize that if Bradley would have had his way, the more explosive allegations would have been kept in the final edit.

i'll have more on this later.

* our man david rose was on Democracy Now re his Neo-Culpa article - and we got a side dish of Sibel:

AMY GOODMAN: David Rose, you wrote an earlier piece, and we had you on at the time, the question of, did Speaker Hastert accept Turkish bribes to deny Armenian Genocide and approve weapons sales. You wrote a piece for Vanity Fair. Today, Americans are making a decision, basically, about whether Dennis Hastert will run the Congress. They will decide the balance of the House of Representatives, and if Democrats win, he will no longer be Speaker of the House. Any further thoughts on that issue and a summary of the investigation that you did earlier?

DAVID ROSE: Well, that, of course, was an article published last year about the case of Sibel Edmonds, who was a translator who worked for the FBI after 9/11, who listened to wiretap recordings made of a number of individuals, wiretaps of various targets who were working in the Turkish embassy and elsewhere that the FBI thought might be a threat to national security or involved in criminal activity. Now, what the article reported was that one of the investigations that she was asked to work on involved recordings made of individuals who claimed that they had bribed Speaker Hastert, with both covert campaign donations and using other methods to transfer money, in favor for his withdrawing the Armenian Genocide resolution, which at that stage was about to pass through the House. It had passed through two preliminary stages.

Now, I think the extraordinary thing about that story is that it has not ever been contested that there was an FBI investigation, which did pick up allegations made by these Turkish targets, targets who, you know, were judged to be security risks by the FBI making these allegations about Speaker Hastert. I have never claimed that those allegations had substance, that they were true, because I simply cannot say. It's impossible to prove it one way or the other. But it is clear that there were recordings made by the FBI in which individuals claimed to have given illegal payments to the Speaker in return for political favors. And I was always slightly surprised and, indeed, again disappointed that the rest of the American media didn't pick up on that and didn't perhaps try to take it further, because it does seem to me to be an important issue.

We're still working on it, David.