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, Dick 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. Dickerson: 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 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, 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 the 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 Eric 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 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, Dickerson
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? Dickerson? 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)
*** 8.pdf
John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national
security and political matters. Reach him at [email protected]
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