Tweet
Counterpunch.com
October 25, 2006
FBI Reveals Investigation Continues
The Vindication of Sibel Edmonds
By JOHN STANTON
On October 10, 2006, 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, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert, et al. Rather
than re-hash 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" in time. 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 1990's 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]
prominentlyIn 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 Dickerson: Human Hot PotatoPlame & Wilson: Spies Like Us
On Monday, October 2, 2006, Captain Warren Comer (USAF, 374AW/PA,
Yakota Japan) indicated that the USAF could provide no further
information about Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Dickerson, 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, 2006, 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."
Dickerson 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, Dickerson 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. Dickerson 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, Dickerson was the subject of investigation for accepting money
from foreign agents, whereupon he was abruptly transferred to
Germany. In 1999, Major Douglas Dickerson returned to the United
States. His wife, Melek Can Dickerson, started to work for American
Turkish Council (atc.org) and related Turkish American business
groups.
In 2001, Dickerson was apparently given a position in the weapons
systems acquisition arena with the Pentagon and US Department of
State. Dickerson's areas of responsibility supposedly included Turkey,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. He also had
dealings with Edelman formerly US Ambassador to Turkey, and now with
the Pentagon's Policy Organization. Dickerson 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
apparatu s, 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, Dickerson was in close proximity to
Plame & 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? Dickerson? Armitage?
More fallout is to come from the Edmonds' matter and the word in
Washington, DC-Metro is that it will involve some individuals named in
this piece.
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national
security and political matters. Reach him at [email protected]
* 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)
*** www.yokota.af.mil/BaseNews/FujiFlyer/2006/Sept%200 8.pdf
http://counterpunch.com/stanton10252006. html
October 25, 2006
FBI Reveals Investigation Continues
The Vindication of Sibel Edmonds
By JOHN STANTON
On October 10, 2006, 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, Dick Cheney, Dennis Hastert, et al. Rather
than re-hash 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" in time. 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 1990's 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]
prominentlyIn 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 Dickerson: Human Hot PotatoPlame & Wilson: Spies Like Us
On Monday, October 2, 2006, Captain Warren Comer (USAF, 374AW/PA,
Yakota Japan) indicated that the USAF could provide no further
information about Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Dickerson, 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, 2006, 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."
Dickerson 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, Dickerson 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. Dickerson 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, Dickerson was the subject of investigation for accepting money
from foreign agents, whereupon he was abruptly transferred to
Germany. In 1999, Major Douglas Dickerson returned to the United
States. His wife, Melek Can Dickerson, started to work for American
Turkish Council (atc.org) and related Turkish American business
groups.
In 2001, Dickerson was apparently given a position in the weapons
systems acquisition arena with the Pentagon and US Department of
State. Dickerson's areas of responsibility supposedly included Turkey,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. He also had
dealings with Edelman formerly US Ambassador to Turkey, and now with
the Pentagon's Policy Organization. Dickerson 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
apparatu s, 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, Dickerson was in close proximity to
Plame & 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? Dickerson? Armitage?
More fallout is to come from the Edmonds' matter and the word in
Washington, DC-Metro is that it will involve some individuals named in
this piece.
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national
security and political matters. Reach him at [email protected]
* 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)
*** www.yokota.af.mil/BaseNews/FujiFlyer/2006/Sept%200 8.pdf
http://counterpunch.com/stanton10252006. html