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General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.” -
Interesting article, Joseph.Originally posted by Joseph
I couldn't help but notice the self-contradiction of article. Check out the following part:
The FBI refused to investigate Edmonds’ claims, at least in part, because the contract linguist had discovered quite a messy scandal: the content of the mistranslated documents revealed that some very powerful people in the U.S. government, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, were connected to foreign organized crime. Even worse, these foreign criminals connected to the high and mighty in the U.S. were also connected internationally, through the heroin trade and associated money laundering, to international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.
After this initial section, the author goes on to assert that 'Turkish deep state' has penetrated U.S government. It may be true that Turkey does its best by trying to counter CIA activity on Turkish soil, but how does it explain alleged involvement of prominent personalities like Dennis Hastert's in organized crime.
I guess we evil Turks put a gun on Hastert's head and say "Hey, now you are going to involve in drug trafficking and make billions of $, otherwise we shoot you". Poor Hastert then had to suppress the xxxxerson investigation because he was actually a naive and innocent man who was being blackmailed by heineous Turks.
I expect that this clowns will soon discover Turkish deep state's involvement in Clinton's dingdong ending up deep in Lewinsky's mouth. -
Originally posted by Vogelgrippe
This article was taken directly from her website and is not the best one, escpecially when background informations is called for but if you do a little research, you'll find that her claims are not unfounded and it was even finally revealed the the ATC and ATAA is still under investigation from the Justice Department (with regards to paying bribes to pay off politicians and using funding for that activity from very dubious sources). I recommend the Vanity Fair article
Here is an interview with Edmonds:
Dennis Hastert's connection has to do with his last minute shelving of the Armenians Genocide bill that would have been approved in 2000. FBI sources picked up conversations between Turkish embassy officials bragging about how they were ablle to pay "Denny Boy" several thousands to shelve the bill before the vote. He took a bribe. Directly he has no connection to the xxxxersons.
Regarding Can xxxxerson, when Sibel Edmonds blew the whistle, the xxxxersons dissappeared, the FBI acknowledged some problems in their translation department but have used their best to block further investigation in xxxxersons activities. This has been primariyl due to the fact that certain employees in the Justice Department ( of which the FBI is the law enforcement wing) want to protect their jobs.
Basically xxxxerson was using her skills to disrupt the FBI investigation. The FBI stupidly had her in charge of the Turkish translation desk.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Sibel Edmonds actions and personal history will probably remain as a mystery to me. However, it looks like, if we assume that the xxxxerson allegations are true, that she acted like a patriotic American by whistleblowing and did the right thing.Originally posted by JosephThis article was taken directly from her website and is not the best one, escpecially when background informations is called for but if you do a little research, you'll find that her claims are not unfounded and it was even finally revealed the the ATC and ATAA is still under investigation from the Justice Department (with regards to paying bribes to pay off politicians and using funding for that activity from very dubious sources). I recommend the Vanity Fair article
Here is an interview with Edmonds:
Dennis Hastert's connection has to do with his last minute shelving of the Armenians Genocide bill that would have been approved in 2000. FBI sources picked up conversations between Turkish embassy officials bragging about how they were ablle to pay "Denny Boy" several thousands to shelve the bill before the vote. He took a bribe. Directly he has no connection to the xxxxersons.
Regarding Can xxxxerson, when Sibel Edmonds blew the whistle, the xxxxersons dissappeared, the FBI acknowledged some problems in their translation department but have used their best to block further investigation in xxxxersons activities. This has been primariyl due to the fact that certain employees in the Justice Department ( of which the FBI is the law enforcement wing) want to protect their jobs.
Basically xxxxerson was using her skills to disrupt the FBI investigation. The FBI stupidly had her in charge of the Turkish translation desk.
On the other hand, it is also very natural to expect that the powerful Armenian lobby in the U.S, alarmed at the increasing (relative) strength of the Turkish lobby, will use this incident as a tool to slander Turkish-Americans.(e.g. that most of them are Turkish agents etc. etc.)
It is therefore no surprise that among hundreds of prominent U.S politicians who are the pawns of one or another big interest groups, Armenians tend to pick Dennis Hastert, who had shelved one pro-Armenian bill in 2000. Given their anti-Turkish agenda, there is nothing good/bad about it, since this is pure Realpolitick with which we have been living for quite a few centuries.Comment
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Originally posted by Vogelgrippe
I agree for the most part. Will Armenians use this to hurt Hastert? No question. But let's not forget, it wasn't the Armenians who made the Hastert connection but once it became public, they will use it to whatever means to defeat the Turkish lobby and ruin his political career. I'm encouraged that groups such as ATAA, ATC, and others are under the increasingly under the microscope and with the Turkish-US relations continuing to slowly deteriorate perhaps more will be revealed.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Sep. 28, 2006 -- SPECIAL REPORT. CIA counter-proliferation front company's cover blown by State Department official two years before White House leak to media.*Originally posted by Joseph
U.S. intelligence sources, speaking on conditions of strict anonymity, have told WMR that the cover status of Brewster Jennings & Associates, the counter-proliferation front company that Valerie Plame Wilson and her CIA counter-proliferation non-official cover (NOC) colleagues used as a front for their operations, was blown in two phone calls placed in June 2001 to two foreign intelligence agents in Washington, DC by then-Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman. The calls were intercepted by the FBI, which had targeted the communications of Grossman and the two foreign intelligence agents as part of a counter-intelligence investigation, according to the sources.
The FBI counter-intelligence operation was investigating a weapons smuggling and influence-peddling ring that was centered on the activities of the American Turkish Council (ATC). a major Turkish lobbying organization in Washington, DC headed up by George H. W. Bush National Security Adviser, retired Gen. Brent Scowcroft. According to U.S. intelligence sources, a principal player in the ring was Grossman, a career foreign service officer who served as U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 1994 to 1997 and then moved back to Washington where he served as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs.
At the end of June 2001, the FBI learned, through its surveillance of the ring, Beyaz Enerji (White Energy), a Turkish energy firm, told its ATC interlocutors in Washington that it was sending a high-level team to the United States to negotiate the procurement of nuclear materials for Turkey's nuclear power program (the term "white" or "beyaz" in the name of the firm refers to "clean" energy). In turn, the ATC contacted four individuals who had access to Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico and asked them to arrange a three month visit to the labs by the Turkish nuclear specialists (October through December 2001) to ascertain Turkish requirements.
The Beyaz Energy group also made known its desire to purchase U.S. nuclear energy consulting firms that maintained access to facilities like Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore in California. However, at the same time Beyaz Energy was making its play for access into U.S. nuclear labs, Brewster Jennings and Associates, the CIA cover company of Valerie Plame Wilson, was very close to penetrating the Beyaz Energy ring, known to the CIA as part of a major nuclear black market operation involving key players in Turkey, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, and the former Soviet Central Asian states. According to CIA sources, the ring also involved a key ATC ally in Washington -- the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a group that provided important access to top U.S. political leaders for Turkish military and industrial chiefs.
When Beyaz Energy began to encounter "consultants" with Brewster Jennings, they expressed an interest to their ATC interlocutors in buying the firm along with other energy consulting companies.
According to U.S. intelligence sources, at the end of June 2001, the FBI intercepted two phone calls from Grossman in which he told the called parties to "stay away from Brewster Jennings . . . they're the government . . . they're nothing but a cover." One of the calls was to a Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) top agent in Washington. The other call, bearing an almost identical message, was made to a Northrop Grumman official who was a key player with the ATC. The Northrop Grumman official made a phone call to his ATC handler, stating, "Our guy warned us off Brewster Jennings." A U.S. intelligence source stated that "Grossman's name was all over the FBI wiretaps in 2001" and the name "Brewster Jennings" first became known to the FBI counter-intelligence agents from these intercepts.
According to CIA sources, Brewster Jennings and Associates was "finished" in the Summer of 2001. Plame was transferred to the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division's Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI), where she and her colleagues were pressured to come up with "evidence" of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Grossman, who now works for the Cohen Group of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, was, according to U.S. intelligence sources, a subject of interest to counter-intelligence agents since his stint as U.S. ambassador in Ankara. One of Grossman's embassy officials was U.S. Air Force Major Douglas xxxxerson, who worked in the embassy's military attaché office and was responsible for logistics matters with the Turkish military. While in Ankara, xxxxerson met and later married Melek Can Harputlu, who U.S.. intelligence sources claim was on the payroll of the MIT (Mýllý Ýstýhbarat Teskýlati) -- the Turkish Intelligence Agency. U.S. intelligence sources confirmed that Grossman ordered xxxxerson to assist International Advisors, Inc. (IAI), a lobbying firm registered in 1989 by Douglas Feith under the stewardship of Richard Perle. The main task of IAI was to represent the government of Turkey in the United States and "promote the objective of U.S.-Turkey defense industrial cooperation."
IAI, for which Feith was CEO and sole stockholder, also steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to Feith's law firm, Feith and Zell (FANZ), which, along with Perle, was involved in setting up the Bosnia Defense Fund and amassed millions of dollars of contributions from Muslim countries for Bosnia. A Riggs Bank source confirmed that Perle was not concerned when it was discovered that Bosnian funds were being used to buy arms that were falling into the hands of Iranian and Al Qaeda units in Bosnia and that when confronted with these problems, shouted to the Riggs interlocutor, "just make it xxxxing happen!"
Soon, xxxxerson, under Grossman's aegis, was promoted to handle all U.S. weapons procurement for Turkey, Azerbaijan (where Richard Armitage was heading up the U.S.-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce), Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. In 1996, the Defense Department's Inspector General's office launched an investigation of a U.S. military officer at the Ankara embassy who was caught receiving a bribe from MIT agents. Shortly after the investigation started, xxxxerson was transferred to a U.S. Air Force base in Germany. xxxxerson's wife, Melek Can worked for the German-Turkish Business and Cultural Association, known to be a cover for MIT activities in Germany. In 1997, Grossman left Ankara to head up the State Department's European Bureau.
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FBI intercepts reveal that Brewster Jennings & Associates cover blown in June 2001 by interests involved with ATC, AIPAC, and JINSA.
In 1998, xxxxerson was transferred from Germany to Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama. In 2001, after George W. Bush became president, xxxxerson was promoted and placed in charge of weapons procurement for Turkey, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington. Melek Can obtained positions with the ATC and Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA).
Following the 911 attacks, Melek Can applied for a translator job at the FBI's Washington Field Office. In a Justice Department Inspector General report, it is stated that Melek Can failed to list on her application her prior jobs with ATA, ATAA, and the German-Turkish Business and Cultural Association. When FBI translator Sibel Edmonds (a Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani translator who worked with Melek Can) complained publicly about MIT's penetration of the FBI, Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley pointedly asked the FBI why no Special Background Investigation (SBI) was conducted on Melek Can. The FBI's responded that Melek Can entered the FBI "through the backdoor" with her husband's Top Secret/SBI being sufficient grounds to grant Melek Can access to FBI classified information. At the same time, the xxxxersons were, according to U.S. intelligence sources, working closely with the ATC.
Edmonds' charges against the xxxxersons were highlighted in a June 2002 Washington Post article. On September 9, 2002, the xxxxersons left Washington for Belgium, where Major xxxxerson was assigned to the U.S. Air Force NATO office. Soon, there were three separate investigations of Edmonds' espionage charges against the xxxxersons: the Justice Department IG probe, a similar probe by the Department of Defense IG led by Joseph Schmitz, and a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee investigation led by Leahy and Grassley.
Two weeks after the xxxxerons arrived in Belgium, Schmitz sent a letter stating that Major xxxxerson's relationship with the ATC while at DIA was "within the scope of his duties." The DOD IG terminated the investigation.
Two weeks after the DoD shut down its investigation of Major xxxxerson, Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the State Secrets Privilege and imposed a "gag order" on Edmonds' making any further comments to the media about her wrongful termination suit against the FBI, which was prompted by her raising concerns about the xxxxersons. The invocation of the State Secrets Privilege by Ashcroft was specifically requested by the Defense and State Departments.
Upon publication of a Vanity Fair article in August 2005 about the Edmonds case and those of other national security whistleblowers, the Department of Defense and U.S. Air Force opened a joint IG investigation of Major xxxxerson and Edmonds' charges, who was still safely ensconced at the NATO office in Belgium. When the DoD invited Edmonds to be interviewed without her lawyer present at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) at Fort Myer, Virginia, she declined, citing the potential threats inherent in such a solo appearance. Schmitz (the son of racist California Republican Rep. John Schmitz and brother of pedophile schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau) resigned on Sept. 9, 2005 to take the general counsel job with the Prince Group, the holding company for Blackwater USA, the private military contractor that was amassing lucrative Pentagon contracts.
When the DoD/USAF IG investigators asked Major xxxxerson once again about the allegations that had re-surfaced against him, U.S. intelligence sources report he told them that he would "start talking" if the investigation proceeded. The DoD/USAF IG investigation of xxxxerson was once again quickly terminated. In January 2006, xxxxerson was promoted in rank to Lieutenant Colonel and transferred to the U.S. Air Force base in Yokota, Japan, where he was assigned as the 374th Logistics Readiness Squadron’s acting commander.
U.S. intelligence sources stated that the "same people" who have continually protected Perle and Feith since the 1980s were also protecting xxxxerson and Grossman. CIA sources, including those who served in Istanbul tracking nuclear smuggling in the late 1980s, also confirm that the Turkish-U.S. nuclear black marketeering ring was directly tied to the Abdul Qadeer Khan nuclear smuggling ring in Pakistan, an operation that sold sensitive nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. The ATC and ATAA in Washington is directly tied to and supported by AIPAC and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) reported a U.S. counter-intelligence source. In fact, JINSA is an "Aegean" member of the ATC. The source said that Valerie Plame Wilson was targeting the ATC and Turkey at the height of her counter-proliferation work in 2001, but special interests associated with AIPAC and JINSA, which the source claims control ATC, scuttled Plame Wilson's operation by exposing Brewster Jennings as a CIA front company.
The CIA's counter-narcotics division is also keenly interested in ATC and its connections to NATO. A Turkish hashish kingpin, Huseyin Baybasin, now jailed in the Netherlands for narcotics smuggling, stated that the Turkish military and its NATO interlocutors are totally involved in the drug trade in Turkey. He said the Turkish military uses MIT and Turkish embassies, consulates, military missions (particularly the Turkish military attaché offices in London and Amsterdam) as drug smuggling facilitators. The Turkish military also reportedly uses its hated Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) enemies to help transport drugs throughout Western Asia, especially heroin now being produced in Afghanistan at record high levels.
On June 10, 2003, Grossman, who was trusted by the Cheney neocon cabal in the White House, received a memo drafted by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR's) on INR's skepticism about President Bush's State of the Union charge that Iraq had tried to procure uranium from Niger. The memo described a February 2002 CIA meeting at which Joseph Wilson was mentioned as the best candidate to undertake a mission to Niger to check on the uranium allegations. The memo also reportedly identified Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA counter-proliferation officer and associated her with the Brewster Jennings & Associates cover company (keep in mind that Grossman had already compromised the company's covert status in June 2001).
Since Grossman joined the Cohen Group as Vice Chairman in January 2005, the firm has become a top client for the ATC. In October 2005, Grossman was appointed a board member of Ihlas Holding, a media corporation that recently sold its TGRT Television network to Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp. U.S. law enforcement sources confirm that Feith remains under a DoD IG investigation that is being spurred by North Carolina Republican Rep. Walter Jones.General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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August 13, 2002
Hon. John Ashcroft
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530
Dear General Ashcroft:
We are writing jointly in order that you might allay our concern about the status of the investigation into allegations made by Sibel Edmonds, a former contract linguist in the Washington Field Office of the FBI. Although we understand that the matter is currently under investigation by the Inspector General, we are troubled that the Department of Justice, including the FBI, may not be acting quickly enough to address the issues raised by Ms. Edmonds' complaints or cooperating fully with the Inspector General's office.
By way of background, Ms. Edmonds first raised concerns about security problems and the integrity of important translations earlier this year. Unfortunately, nearly every person at the FBI who was notified of the situation reacted by questioning why Ms. Edmonds was "causing trouble." Indeed, the FBI's first internal security action in this case focused on Ms. Edmonds, instead of the allegations that she raised in good faith as a whistleblower and which bore on national security and the war against terrorism.
Ms. Edmonds has made a number of serious allegations, some of which the FBI verified during an unclassified briefing for Judiciary Committee staff on June 17. First, Ms. Edmonds has alleged that a contract monitor in her unit ("monitor") chose not to translate important, intelligence-related information, instead limiting her translation to unimportant and innocuous information. The FBI has verified that this monitor indeed failed to translate intelligence-related information, but has attributed the failure to a lack of training as opposed to a malicious act.
That conclusion is directly related to Ms. Edmond's second allegation. Ms. Edmonds alleged that the same contract monitor once worked for an organization associated with the target of a counter-intelligence investigation and that the monitor had unreported contacts with a foreign national who was a member of the target institution. Additionally, Ms. Edmonds states that some of the mistranslated recordings on which the monitor actually worked contained conversations by this same foreign national with whom the monitor had such contacts. Finally, the foreign national disclosed in recorded conversations that he handled intelligence matters. This fact was among the information that was not translated or summarized by the monitor.
Even after verifying these allegations, the FBI downplayed the importance of this matter and seemed to imply that it had ceased looking into the complaints as a security matter until after the Inspector General Office finishes its investigation. Anyone who remembers the long-time treachery of former FBI Agent Robert Hanssen would be concerned at this reaction. For years, Hanssen's bizarre actions were also written off as minor security breaches and unworthy of serious consideration. If even routine diligence had been exercised earlier, Hanssen could have been stopped from doing untold damage. The FBI needs to learn from its mistakes.
In addition to general concerns raised by this case, we have several specific concerns we wish to raise for your review. First, we have learned that a person central to the investigation -- the monitor referred to earlier -- will be leaving the country in early September, which most likely will be before the investigation is resolved. If you or your staff would like to know the identity of the monitor, please contact Inspector General Fine's office, with whom Senator Grassley's staff has been in touch. The monitor may hold dual citizenship with the United States and a foreign country and may possess a valid passport issued by that foreign country. Thus, there will be little or no assurance that the monitor will return or cooperate with an investigation in the future. Based on these facts, we would like your assurance that you are satisfied that there has been and will be no delay that will prejudice, in any way, the outcome of this investigation.
Furthermore, we would like your assurance that the Department of Justice, including the FBI, will fully cooperate in all aspects of the inquiry. For instance, we draw your attention to the fact that the FBI currently opposes depositions of the monitor and her husband as part of the investigation into this case. The FBI takes this position despite the fact that the monitor is no longer employed by the FBI, that the monitor's husband never worked at the FBI and even though the military agency that employs the monitor's husband does not oppose a deposition. Moreover, we understand that the monitor and her husband have signed a letter stating they will make themselves available for depositions. It is unclear, then, why the FBI is taking this position in the wake of such important allegations bearing on national security. We hope that you will ensure that the FBI is fully compliant with the Inspector General's inquiry as it proceeds.
Finally, we are concerned about the most crucial evidence in the case -- the recordings that were allegedly improperly translated. Because these bear directly on the veracity of Ms. Edmonds' allegations, we seek your assurance that the recordings will be properly maintained, turned over to the Inspector General's Office and promptly translated by a competent and independent authority. That way the validity of the complaint can be quickly evaluated.
We know that you share our concern that the FBI address issues bearing on national security in a prompt manner, regardless of whether or not they cast the FBI in a positive light. Only by honest evaluation can the FBI learn from its past mistakes. We thank you in advance for your cooperation in this matter. We request a reply in writing by Wednesday, August 28, 2002.
Sincerely,
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy
Sen. Chuck Grassley
Chairman, Ranking Member
Subcommittee on Crime and DrugsGeneral Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Sibel Edmonds vindicated
Originally posted by Joseph
SIBEL EDMONDS VINDICATED? FBI REVEALS INVESTIGATION CONTINUES
By John Stanton - Online Journal Contributing Writer
Online Journal, Florida
Oct 25 2006
On October 10, FBI spokesman Bill Carter confirmed that matters raised
by Sibel Edmonds and shielded form public view by the invocation of
the US States Secret privilege were still under internal investigation
by the bureau.
"Due to the fact that the allegations of Sibel Edmonds reflect internal
administrative and investigative matters it would not be appropriate
to respond to your inquiry. I will point out that the DOJ Office of
the Inspector General has reviewed this matter and released a public
report. I would refer this report to you for your review.
The Inspector General's report concluded that the FBI did not
adequately investigate allegations Ms. Edmonds made regarding
a co-worker. After the OIG's initial classified report, the FBI
conducted further investigation into Ms. Edmonds' allegations. That
investigation is continuing."*
Back in March of 2002, Edmonds was released from the FBI over her
discovery of an array of espionage activities. Looking back, and
with the benefit of new information from the FBI and elsewhere, it
appears that the government of Turkey was spectacularly successfully
in compromising FBI, CIA, DEA, DIA and DOS operations, and was also
able to mount other espionage programs that allowed Turkish interests
to obtain assorted military and WMD technology know-how, and garner US
and Israeli military support for its bloody internal struggle against
its significant and much maligned Kurdish population/opposition.
The Turks: Masters of Espionage
The Turks would not have been successful in staging what may be
recorded as one of history's finest intelligence coups had it not been
for many sympathetic US military personnel, bureaucrats and politicians
who, whatever their egotistical reasons, believed themselves to be
acting in the USA's best interests. Certainly, no one can accuse them
of not effectively representing their powerful Turkish clients whether
in defeating US congressional action recognizing the Armenian Genocide
or ensuring that US corporations close lucrative deals in Turkey.
The sympathizers names are now overly familiar: Douglas Feith,
Brent Scowcroft, William Cohen, Richard Perle, Michael Leeden,
Bob Livingston, Marc Grossman, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric Edelman,
Richard Armitage, Donald Rumsfeld, xxxx Cheney, Dennis Hastert, et
al. Rather than rehash their affiliations and track records here,
visit rightweb.irc-online.org to find out more about their linkages
to each other and Turkey (Israel, too).
The Turks knew it would take lots of cash to pull off such a scheme and
sustain it. The illicit drug trade provided an endless source of funds
to pay for WMD components, US defense technology, politicians, money
laundering schemes, counterterrorist operations, safe interrogation
houses, and dozens of front companies. Given Turkey's solid reputation
as a key refining point/middleman for opium coming out of Afghanistan
(it is ultimately transported into the Balkans and on to Europe
and the USA), it is no surprise that the Turkish government always
seems to have a steady supply of cash to spread around. Perhaps it
is just coincidence, but under the watchful eyes of the Pentagon and
US law enforcement and intelligence agencies, opium crop production
in Afghanistan has increased over the last decade. The profits from
refining and distribution of the product have flooded the black
market -- the playground for intelligence operatives and assorted
criminal enterprises.
Joltin' Joe Ralston
Desmond Fernandes, has recently published an extraordinary piece,
titled "Turkey's US Backed War on Terror: A Cause for Concern?". The
information provided in this publication shows the lengths to which the
US and Turkey (and Israel) will go to keep some very nasty activities
quiet. One of the more interesting bits of news in the report is that,
at the invitation of the Turkish government, US and Israeli forces
are assisting the Turkish government in military operations against
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PPK) and the Kurdish people and their
culture. The US is ostensibly engaged in counter-narcotics operations
with the Turks.
Joseph Ralston, former USAF general and now Lockheed Martin
employee and American Turkish Council principal, is the special
envoy/coordinator for US-Turkey anti-Kurdish operations. In October
2006, the US Congress approved the sale of 30 of F-16 combat aircraft
worth $2.9 billion to Turkey.
The world has seen the effects of similar alliances on persecuted
people, most notably the tragic one between the US and Israel. That
template will now be applied in Turkey to manage the Kurds. It's
their turn to be abused and pushed from their homelands by the
same methods and equipment used against the Palestinians (and now
the Iraqis). American leaders sanctioned the elimination of the
Palestinian leaders and their people, even groups freely elected like
Hamas. With eager US approval, Israeli military operations continue
unabated in Gaza and the West Bank into late 2006. US support for
Israel's destruction of the Shia population in Lebanon during the
Hezbollah-Israeli conflict in 2006, along with decades of unswerving
support in the United Nations and the US Congress is notoriously
legendary. All this bodes ill for the Kurds.
And so it begins. According to kurdmedia.com, "the PKK -- the most
prominent Kurdish freedom movement -- declared a unilateral ceasefire
that went into effect on Sunday, 1 October. It still remains unilateral
- the entire Turkish establishment, from top general, Yasar Buyukanit,
to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has rejected it, clearly
stating their determination to continue the war . . .
Joseph Ralston spoke for the US government when he indicated that
"a ceasefire sort of implies an act that is taken between two states,
two actors, to do that. And I don't want to confer that kind of status
on the PKK by saying a ceasefire . . ."
According to Fernandes, "General Joseph W. Ralston, the US government's
Special Envoy who is responsible for countering the terrorist PKK and
coordinating actions and eliminationist strategies with the Turkish
and Iraqi states . . . [He] . . . just so happens to be a member
of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin, the same corporation
whose deal for the sale of 30 F-16s [to Turkey] sits in the venerable
halls of Congress at this very moment." F-16s it must be remembered,
were needed during Turkey's genocidal War on Terror during the 1990s
because of their usefulness in obliterating Kurdish settlements,
killing civilians and terrifying Kurdish civilians.
It is widely known that the Turkish military used Lockheed Martin
F-16s to assist with the destruction of Kurdish villages in North
Kurdistan during the 1990s Dirty War, with the facts well documented
by human rights groups. In 1995, Human Rights Watch documented arms
sales to Turkey, along with related violations of the laws of war by
that state . . ."[It] included the many gross abuses that Turkey . .
. perpetrated against the Kurdish people [with] the F-16 fighter
jet figure[ing] prominently . . . In a report ordered by the [US]
Congress, the State Department admitted that the abuses included
the use of US Cobra helicopters, armored personnel carriers, and
F-16 fighter bombers. In some instances, critics say, entire Kurdish
villages were obliterated from the air.
"This proposed [new multi-billion dollar] sale in 2006, the
[Pentagon] has claimed, will enhance the Turkish Air Force's ability
to defend Turkey, no doubt against its internal Kurdish threat in
[the Kurdish] colony in the southeast, and its external one in
southern Kurdistan/Northern Iraq . . . [The aircraft will be used to
patrol the] nation's extensive coastline and borders against future
threats and to contribute to the Global War on Terrorism and NATO
operations . . . With this in mind, you should ask yourself what,
exactly, General Ralston is coordinating. We all know the real deal,
don't we? We all know who have been the targets of those F-16s . . ."
Lt. Col. xxxxerson: Human Hot Potato . . . Plame & Wilson: Spies
Like Us
On Monday, October 2, Captain Warren Comer (USAF, 374AW/PA, Yakota
Japan) indicated that the USAF could provide no further information
about Lieutenant Colonel Douglas xxxxerson, a central figure in the
Edmonds' matter. "Looking at your request, the only information that
I can confirm to you is what is written in the Fuji Flyer newspaper
that you read. For any other questions on this subject, please refer
to the FBI or the US State Department."***
Taking Captain Comer's advice, the US State Department was contacted.
On Tuesday, October 3, Ms Nancy L. Beck (US DOS, PACE) indicated that
"Responding to your inquiry, this is not a matter for the US Department
of State. Recommend you direct your question to the FBI or Department
of Justice."
xxxxerson was recently deployed to the Iraqi theater of operations
where he heads up logistics matters for an element of the USAF. His
handlers in the intelligence community apparently are happy about that
and so must be the public affairs personnel who don't want anything
to do with him.
In 2002, xxxxerson and his spouse, Melek Can, left the country for
Belgium and a quiet post with NATO after Edmonds exposed them as
Turkish operatives or, perhaps, US counterintelligence operatives.
xxxxerson and his wife's activities remain a mystery. According to
various reports, they were once stationed in Ankara, Turkey, in the
1990s, and had contact with Douglas Feith and Marc Grossman. Another
report indicated that in 1995, while in Turkey, xxxxerson was the
subject of investigation for accepting money from foreign agents,
whereupon he was abruptly transferred to Germany. In 1999, Major
Douglas xxxxerson returned to the United States. His wife, Melek Can
xxxxerson, started to work for the American Turkish Council (atc.org)
and related Turkish American business groups.
In 2001, xxxxerson was apparently given a position in the weapons
systems acquisition arena with the Pentagon and US Department
of State. xxxxerson's areas of responsibility supposedly included
Turkey, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. He also
had dealings with Eric Edelman, formerly US Ambassador to Turkey and
now with the Pentagon's Policy Organization. xxxxerson was also active
with ATC and Scowcroft. He and his wife associated with several Turkish
and American individuals from the Turkish Embassy and the ATC. Many
of these folks were targeted by FBI counterintelligence for criminal
activity. But thanks to the Turkish government's penetration of the
highest echelons of the US political / military / intelligence /
corporate apparatus, the Pentagon and US State Department forced the
FBI to back off any criminal investigations that may expose criminal
activity, and untidy and covert operations.
Finally, there's the perplexing case of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson.
According to dozens of media reports, Valerie Plame was introduced to
Joe Wilson by Brent Scowcroft at an ATC function. Shortly thereafter,
the pair was invited to a Turkish Embassy function. Quickly after that,
Plame's CIA WMD operation (Brewster Jennings) was exposed by then
Under Secretary of State, Richard Armitage. Coincidently, xxxxerson
was in close proximity to Plame and Wilson in the 1999-2002 timeframe
and the Pentagon and US State Department. It seems likely that only a
Turkish operative located somewhere in the US government/intelligence
community would have uncovered that information and disclosed it to
the Turks and their US sympathizers.
Was it Wilson? xxxxerson? Armitage?
More fallout is to come from the Edmonds' matter and the word in the
Washington, DC-Metro is that it will involve some individuals named
in this piece.
References
* Email to FBI PA Bill Carter from John Stanton. Thanks
to Mir Carter and the FBI, plus the reference to
usdoj.gov/oig/special/0501/index.htm. The CIA, DOD-IG, DEA and Turkish
Intelligence did respond.
** From the October 2006 electronic edition of Variant: Cross Currents
in Culture, No. 27, Winter 2006 variant.randomstate.org and from
Chapter 5 of the book by Desmond Fernandes and Iskender Ozden (2006)
US, UK, German and NATO 'Inspired' Psychological Warfare Operations
Against The Kurdish 'Communist' Threat in Turkey and Northern Iraq
(Apec Press, Stockholm)
*** https://www.yokota.af.mil/BaseNews/F.../Sept%2008.pdf
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national
security and political matters. Reach him at [email protected]
General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Damage Control Firm Takes Quiet Interest as Former US General Is Charged with Turkish Profiteering
10/31/2006 (Balkanalysis.com)
“We are indeed all friends here, friends of a great relationship.”
-Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to the American-Turkish Council, March 18, 2002
A major Kurdish diaspora group is calling for the head of a former American general recently dispatched to Turkey. The general, Joseph Ralston, has been accused of using his new role as ‘special envoy’ to the Turkish government to ensure that American defense giant Lockheed Martin – of which Ralston is a board member – will get to continue supplying the Turkish military with fighter planes.
On 26 October, the Kurdish National Congress of North America issued a press release demanding “the immediate resignation” of the former USAF General Ralston as the Bush administration’s point man on the Turkish campaign against Kurdish guerrillas in the country’s southeast.
Two months earlier, with little fanfare, the State Department had announced Ralston’s appointment to a position that does indeed seem curiously unique- “Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).” Although there are scores of simmering conflicts in countries around the globe, there are not so many to which Washington sends an official military advisor to oversee the fighting.
Indeed, as the Kurdish group discloses, “Ralston’s appointment came at a time when Turkey was finalizing the sale of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft (approx. $3 billion) and as Turkey was due to make a decision on the $10 billion purchase of the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. The sale for the F-16’s was approved by Congress in mid-October and Turkey’s decision in favor of the F-35 JSF was announced on October 25, shortly after Ralston’s recent stay in Ankara, ostensibly to counter the PKK.”
Ralston’s affiliations with American companies and Turkish-American lobby groups that stand to gain financially from his current activities were exposed in the press release:
“General Ralston is a vice-chairman of The Cohen Group, a private lobby firm with close ties to the American Turkish Council (ATC) and Lockheed Martin. According to an article in the Washington Post in May of this year, Lockheed Martin acknowledged it was a client of The Cohen Group, and paid some $500,000 to The Cohen Group for services rendered in 2005. General Ralston is also a member of the 2006 Advisory Board of the ATC, as well as a current member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is also a member of the ATC.”
The American-Turkish Council, it should be remembered, is the high-powered lobbying interest in Washington which has been fingered as an intermediary and incubator for espionage within the FBI from Turkish employees. It “wasn’t the sort of group just anyone could belong to,” pointed out former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who was fired in spring 2002 after complaining about infiltration of the FBI and blocking of criminal investigations into related individuals.
A corrupted Air Force man and former military procurement officer to Turkey and the Central Asian states, Douglas xxxxerson, and his Turkish-born wife Can xxxxerson, tried unsuccessfully to recruit Edmonds into their espionage ring and promised membership in the hallowed ATC as one of the rewards for cooperation. According to Edmonds, xxxxerson implied this to her husband, averring that “…all you have to do is tell the [ATC] where your wife works and what she does, and they will let you in like that.” All the translator had to do was keep the FBI off the trail of suspects under investigation for espionage regarding defense-related issues. When she refused, the xxxxerson’s became hostile and threatening.
Kurdish supporters are not angry just because Ralston and his corporate cronies might make money from yet another international arms deal. They further charge that even though the Kurdish rebel group has extended an olive branch to the Turkish government, the US and Turkey have no interest in making peace, as peace would in the long-term lessen the justifications for Turkey to maintain such a large military arsenal- and thus be bad for ‘business.’ The Kurds suspect that, in order for American defense companies to keep bringing home the bacon, the conflict should sizzle for as long as possible- regardless of how many Kurdish civilians and Turkish servicemen die.
Indeed, while a unilateral PKK ceasefire went into effect on October 1, Ralston assured the Turks that there would be no compromises, no negotiations, and even no communications with the Kurdish rebels- in other words, business as usual. Speaking before the Eurasian Strategic Research Center (ASAM) in Istanbul, Ralston said:
“I want to be clear on this point: The U.S. will not negotiate with the PKK. We will not ask Turkey to negotiate with the PKK. And I pledge to you that I will never meet with the PKK.”
When asked whether the US had a vision of any “IRA solution” for the Kurds, Ralston stated that any comparison of the Irish unity struggle and the Kurdish independence one was akin to “mixing apples with oranges.” Spinning the Kurdish campaign as part of the broader ‘war on terror,’ the US envoy said, “…we will use all of the tools at our disposal: law enforcement, intelligence, diplomacy, financial pressure. And we have not taken any other option off the table.”
The Kurds know from experience what “other options” means. The civil conflict that began in 1983 – according to author Daniele Ganser, allowing corrupt state security forces and Kurdish smugglers to profit from the heroin trade – has claimed over 30,000 lives and resulted in the destruction of over 3,000 Kurdish villages. Indeed, as the former Air Force general noted with satisfaction, “the U.S. has done more to assist Turkey in its fight against the PKK than any other country.” And, if Ralston and his military-corporate friends have anything to say about it, this “assistance” will continue for years to come as Turkey builds up its military arsenal.
Of course, the special military liaison’s role in Turkey has been complicated by extenuating foreign policy concerns. Turkish public opinion regarding the US since the Iraq invasion has gone from wary to hostile over the Kurdish issue. Turks believe that the renewed turbulence in the southeast since 2003 is a direct result of the US’ “liberation” of Iraqi Kurds in the bordering region, whose taste for freedom, Turks fear, has rubbed off on their own restive Kurdish minority.
Ralston’s visit is only the latest in a diplomatic drive to mend fences and assuage hurt feelings in Turkey. The former general emphasized that “the PKK is a terrorist organization, not a tool of U.S. foreign policy. We are not using and will not use the PKK in any way in Iraq.” As a means of reaffirming this goodwill, Ralston and his fellow Lockheed Martin shareholders pledge to help the Turkish government put down the Kurdish revolt- even if it means they have to profit at the same time. Such altruism is truly noble.
Enter the Damage Control Experts: Public Strategies Inc. Ponders a Response
The Kurdish lobby group’s press release has captured the attention of the relevant damage-control companies. Mizgin Yilmaz, a Kurdish activist who carried the press release on her blog, Rastî, provided Balkanalysis.com with the following tidbit: “we had a forty-minute visit from a company called Public Strategies, Inc, first for five minutes and another twenty minutes later, for a little over thirty minutes.” PSI did not immediately respond to our request for information regarding its current relationship with Ralston or Lockheed Martin.
According to Source Watch, “Public Strategies has helped many corporations involved in high-profile crises successfully weather the storm and better prepare for the possibility of future turbulence.” The company proudly maintains that it is many corporations’ first phone call for crisis response.” The PSI website states:
“with significant shareholder value at stake, forward-thinking companies know that the best defense against crisis is a good offense: be prepared… companies also call on us when they get blindsided. In any crisis, the first 48 hours are critical. Our experts help clients mobilize a rapid, centralized response aimed first at stabilizing the situation and then at managing through it.”
The question is, who made the call to PSI after the press release on General Ralston and his escapades in Turkey?
Although it is not stated, strong suspicions point to Lockheed Martin as the entity whose “significant shareholder value” was at stake. In one of its case studies, PSI proudly points out a prior success:
“as the federal government began to consider proposals for the next generation of state-of-the-art fighter jets, Public Strategies was called to develop subtle-but-effective tactics to direct the government’s selection in the favor of a major aeronautics manufacturer… Public Strategies crafted a tactical communications campaign designed to create a favorable environment for the company and its proposal.”
In the end, the company discloses, “the U.S. Department of Defense awarded our client the largest military contract in history, worth $200 billion.” Although it is not stated explicitly, it’s no secret that the winning bidder was none other than Lockheed-Martin.
In October 2002, the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts released a report noting that the Fort Worth-based company would receive a combined, multi-year federal contract worth some $200 billion. The contract was for the next – and perhaps final – generation of US fighter planes, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), “one of the most sophisticated and deadly objects ever devised by man.”
In the future, the veracity of this claim could be decided by a focus group conducted somewhere in say, southeast Turkey.
Just think! PSI or the Cohen Group could organize the focus group, supported of course by federal funds, as part of a new “military assistance” package to Ankara. And then we could all learn just how sophisticated and deadly the F-35 really is. A win-win situation for everyone!General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”Comment
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Joseph
Thank you for picking up the torch and running with it!"All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)Comment
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