Kill the Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

YouTube has pulled Ed Bradley's 60 Minutes piece on Sibel "due to terms of use violation."

Does anyone have a copy? I'd like to re-post some snippets from the segment.

UPDATE: I have the piece. thnx.

We've got a bunch of new stuff that will be coming up in the next few days - including a video of (some of?) the panel from the screening earlier in the month, and a whole bunch of other Sibel-related things.

Please check back in.

One of the battles Sibel is forced to fight- even with many progressives and liberals- is to constantly reestablish her credibility. In some sense, this has been inevitable, given the shocking allegations she has made. (In case you haven't been paying attention, Sibel translated wiretaps that reveal Turkish nationals involved in drug running, terror-support activities, illegal lobbying, arms trafficking and corruption of high-level U.S. officials.) And yet, as sensational and astounding as her revelations sound, it is hard to deny that Sibel has a lot of corroboration for her story – even FBI officials have had to admit privately to Congress and the Inspector General that her claims are backed up by other documents and witnesses.

There exist 3 solid sources that give important credence to Sibel's story. They are as follows:

Members of Congress- Senators Patrick Leahy, Charles Grassley and Representative Henry Waxman are all on record as saying Sibel's story is corroborated within the FBI. Grassley is the most interesting case. A conservative Republican, he allowed himself to be filmed on camera in 2002 very emphatically saying

"Absolutely, she's credible. And the reason I feel she's very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story." Grassley by then had certainly heard the allegations Sibel made against his GOP colleague Dennis Hastert. It blows the mind to think Grassley would have given any backing to Sibel's story at all if there was any way he could have discounted it. It further more stretches one's imagination to think that Grassley would allow himself to be quoted as supporting a whistleblower unless he firmly believed the allegations to be corroborated.\n Grassley, whatever you think of his conservative views, is a good politician. And good politicians are generally very cautious in their public statements.

The Inspector General's Report- At the behest of Senators Grassley and Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Department of Justice's Inspector General (IG) did its own investigation into Sibel's allegations.\n While the initial Report was completely classified, the IG was forced to put out a declassified version which said the following: "we believe that many of her allegations 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."

Former Attorney General Ashcroft - The actions of the U.S. government toward Sibel, especially former Attorney General Ashcroft in 2002-2004, should tell us a whole lot as well.
First, Ashcroft invoked the "state secrets privilege" to block Sibel's wrongful termination lawsuit. Then, he invoked it again to prevent Sibel from repeating her previous public statements in the 9-11 families' Motley-Rice lawsuit. Finally, Ashcroft effectively gagged the U.S. Congress in 2004 by retroactively classifying public information already released from previously unclassified Senate hearings.

Now maybe it's just me who thinks this way, but if Sibel Edmonds is going around spinning conspiracy theories, why would the U.S. government need to gag her so severely? The answer: it wouldn't. Finally, it should be added that Sibel has a lineup of respected persons and organizations that have publicly backed her in one way or another.

These people/organizations include:
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower
Senator Frank Lautenberg
Representative Carolyn Maloney
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Former CIA Counterterrorism Expert Phillip Giraldi
Former CIA Analyst, Ray McGovern
Former CIA Agent Larry Johnson
Former FBI Counterintelligence Agent John Cole
NSA Whistleblower Russ Tice
National Coalition against Censorship
Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC)
Liberty Coalition
National Whistleblower Center
Open the Government .Org
U.S.-Armenian Public Affairs Committee (USAPAC)
Citizen Outreach
Concerned Foreign Service Officers
Fairfax County Privacy Council
Federal Hispanic Law Enforcement Officers Association
Government Accountability Project (GAP)
National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation

So next time you feel the urge to dismiss Sibel's claims, keep all these facts in mind. And especially try to remember what former FBI counterintelligence agent John Cole's said his FBI sources told him about Sibel.

"They were telling me that Sibel Edmonds was a 100 percent accurate, that management knew that she was correct."

That, my friends, says it all.

* Busboys and Poets in DC will be screening the movie for the public on Sunday at 1pm - and will probably run some more screenings in the near future. The phones are running off the hook with requests.

From their website, the focus of the panel on Saturday:

"FOCUS: If the rest of the world seems to deem the issues presented in the this film worthy of prime-time attention, why does the United States main media continue to shy from its coverage? The film presents a terrifying picture of Turkish networks' activities in global nuclear black-market, narcotics and illegal arms trafficking activities in the United States, and examines the extraordinary efforts of officials within the US Government to insure that the secrecy surrounding Edmonds' case be maintained at any cost from Edmonds' termination from the FBI, to invoking the State Secrets Privilege, to gagging the US Congress. "

why indeed?