Zawahiri, "Gladio B", Turkey and Sibel Edmonds

[Cain]

I've mentioned this story elsewhere, but it deserves its own thread:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/20/al-qaeda-enemy-or-asset/

Described by the American Civil Liberties Union as the "most gagged person in the history of the United States of America," Edmonds studied criminal justice, psychology and public policy at  George Washington and George Mason universities. Two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, her fluency in Turkish, Farsi and Azerbaijani earned her an FBI contract at the Washington DC field office. She was tasked with translating highly classified intelligence from operations against terrorism suspects in and outside the U.S..

In the course of her work, Edmonds became privy to evidence that U.S. military and intelligence agencies were collaborating with Islamist militants affiliated with al-Qaeda, the very forces blamed for the 9/11 attacks – and that officials in the FBI were covering up the evidence. When Edmonds complained to her superiors, her family was threatened by one of the subjects of her complaint, and she was fired. Her accusations of espionage against her FBI colleagues were eventually investigated by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General, which did not give details about the allegations as they remained classified.

Although no final conclusions about the espionage allegations were reached, the Justice Department concluded that many of Edmonds' accusations "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."

When she attempted to go public with her story in 2002, and again in 2004, the U.S. government silenced Edmonds by invoking a legal precedent known as "state secrets privilege" – a near limitless power to quash a lawsuit based solely on the government's claim that evidence or testimony could divulge information that might undermine "national security." Under this doctrine, the government sought to retroactively classify basic information concerning Edmonds's case already in the public record, including, according to the New York Times, "what languages Ms. Edmonds translated, what types of cases she handled, and what employees she worked with, officials said. Even routine and widely disseminated information — like where she worked — is now classified."

Five years ago, Edmonds revealed to the Sunday Times that an unidentified senior U.S. State Department official was on the payroll of Turkish agents in Washington, passing on nuclear and military secrets. "He was aiding foreign operatives against U.S. interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives", Edmonds told the paper. She reported coming across this informationwhen listening to suppressed phone calls recorded by FBI surveillance, marked by her colleague Melek Can Dickerson as "not pertinent".

In the Sunday Times exposé, Edmonds described a parallel organisation in Israel cooperating with the Turks on illegal weapons sales and technology transfers. Between them, Israel and Turkey operated a range of front companies incorporated in the U.S. with active "moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions", supported by U.S. officials, in order to sell secrets to the highest bidder. One of the  buyers was Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) – which often used its Turkish allies, according to the Times, "as a conduit... because they were less likely to attract suspicion."

The Pakistani operation was, the paper reported,  "led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief" from 1999 to 2001, when the agency helped train, supply and coordinate the Afghan Taliban and gave sanctuary to their Arab allies brought together in the coalition named al-Qaeda. Ahmad, as the Timesnoted, "was accused [by the FBI] of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks."

In her interview, Edmonds  insisted that after its initial exposé, the Times' investigation had gone beyond such previous revelations, and was preparing to disclose her most startling accusations. Among these, Edmonds described how the CIA and the Pentagon had been running a series of covert operations supporting Islamist militant networks linked to Osama bin Laden right up to 9/11, in Central Asia, the Balkans and the Caucasus.

While it is widely recognised that the CIA sponsored bin Laden's networks in Afghanistan during the Cold War, U.S. government officials deny any such ties existed. Others claim these ties were real, but were severed after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.

But according to Edmonds, this narrative is false. "Not just bin Laden, but several senior 'bin Ladens' were transported by U.S. intelligence back and forth to the region in the late 1990s through to 2001″, she told this author, "including Ayman al-Zawahiri" – Osama bin Laden's right-hand-man who has taken over as al-Qaeda's top leader.

"In the late 1990s, all the way up to 9/11, al-Zawahiri and other mujahideen operatives were meeting regularly with senior U.S. officials in the U.S. embassy in Baku to plan the Pentagon's Balkan operations with the mujahideen," said Edmonds. "We had support for these operations from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, but the U.S. oversaw and directed them. They were being run from a secret section of the Pentagon with its own office".

Edmonds' allegations find some independent corroboration in the public record. The Wall Street Journal refers to a nebulous agreement between Mubarak and "the operational wing of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was then headed by Ayman al-Zawahiri...  Many of that group's fighters embraced a cease-fire with the government of former President Hosni Mubarak in 1997."

Youssef Bodansky, former Director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, cited U.S. intelligence sources in an article for Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy, confirming "discussions between the Egyptian terrorist leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri and an Arab-American known to have been both an emissary of the CIA and the U.S. Government." He referred to an "offer" made to al-Zawahiri in November 1997 on behalf of U.S. intelligence, granting his Islamists a free hand in Egypt as long as they lent support to U.S. forces in the Balkans. In 1998, Al Zawahiri's brother, Muhammed, led an elite unit of the Kosovo Liberation Army against Serbs during the Kosovo conflict – he reportedly had direct contact with NATO leadership.

In recent interviews, two Sunday Times journalists confirmed to this author that the newspaper's investigation based on Sibel Edmonds' revelations was to break much of the details into the open.

"We'd spoken to several current and active Pentagon officials confirming the existence of U.S. operations sponsoring mujahideen networks in Central Asia from the 1990s to 2001," said oneSunday Times source. "Those mujahideen networks were intertwined with a whole range of criminal enterprises, including drugs and guns. The Pentagon officials corroborated Edmonds' allegations against specific U.S. officials, and I'd also interviewed an MI6 officer who confirmed that the U.S. was running these operations sponsoring mujahideen in that period."

But according to Edmonds, citing the investigative team at the paper, the last two articles in the series were spiked under U.S. State Department pressure. She recalled being told at the time by journalists leading the Sunday Times investigation that the newspaper's editor had decided to squash the story after receiving calls from officials at the U.S. embassy in London.

A journalist with the Sunday Times' investigative unit told this author he had interviewed former Special Agent in Charge, Dennis Saccher, who had moved to the FBI's Colorado office. Saccher reportedly confirmed the veracity of Edmonds' allegations of espionage, telling him that Edmonds' story "should have been front page news" because it was "a scandal bigger than Watergate." The same journalist confirmed that after interviewing Saccher at his home, the newspaper was contacted by the U.S. State Department. "The U.S. embassy in London called the editor and tried to ward him off. We were told that we weren't permitted to approach Saccher or any other active FBI agents directly, but could only go through the FBI's press office – that if we tried to speak to Saccher or anyone else employed by the FBI directly, that would be illegal. Of course, it isn't, but that's what we were told. I think this was a veiled threat."

What is not mentioned in this article, but is mentioned on the author's personal site, is that the role Marc Grossman allegedly played.  Grossman was the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey (1994-1997), and then afterwards "went onto become Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs (1997-2000), then served as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs under the Bush administration (2001-2005). His most recent political appointment was as Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan (2011-2012). He is currently Vice President of the Washington DC lobbying firm, The Cohen Group." 

Grossman is alleged to have been the agent on the payroll of Turkish intelligence, as alleged by Edmonds.  And, as the author notes, "The Pakistani daily, The News, reported on 10th September 2001 that the ISI chief held several "mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council" that week, including CIA director George Tenet – but "the most important meeting was with Mark [sic] Grossman, U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs.""

[Doktor Howl]

This is sort of like the perfect storm of willful ignorance, neglect, and deliberate malfeasance.

Amazing.

[Cain]

It is.

It's my personal opinion that this, and the previously outlined Chechen connection (which would seem to fall under the rubric of "Gladio B") explains a lot of the weirdness around 9/11.  Edmond's allegations have always been somewhat hard to swallow, but the response of the Bush administration to her attempts to talk lend a hell of a lot of credence to what she says.

[Doktor Howl]

It is.

It's my personal opinion that this, and the previously outlined Chechen connection (which would seem to fall under the rubric of "Gladio B") explains a lot of the weirdness around 9/11.  Edmond's allegations have always been somewhat hard to swallow, but the response of the Bush administration to her attempts to talk lend a hell of a lot of credence to what she says.

I've always believed that 911 happened as advertised, but that it was ALLOWED to happen, either through utter incompetence, willful disregard of General Clark's warnings, or (more likely) both.

Thing is, it's hard to publicly question it because of the Truther-Tards, which have so completely poisoned the well that I'm beginning to suspect they had a little "help".

[Cain]

Yes.  My belief was more that certain people were linked to, for example, the ISI, the Saudi Royal Family, the other Bin Ladens, CIA black ops in Kosovo, Chechnya etc were afraid that said links would make them look extremely bad in light of 9/11.  Possibly criminally bad in some cases, in others probably just enough to be universally reviled by US public opinion.

Thus the coverup wasn't how things occured on the day, but the circumstances around it.  For example, the 9/11 Commission's redacted conclusion about the role of Saudi Arabia in the attacks.  The exact levels of collusion between US intelligence and radical Islam.  This covert smuggling network that Sibel Edmonds talks about.  Drugs too, going by Hopsicker's investigation.

Also, the 9/11 Truthers were quickly taken over by LaRouchites (who, it should be recalled, had significant links to the Reagan administration and have their own intelligence network, the EIR) and ex-military/spook types.  So yes, again.

[Doktor Howl]

Yes.  My belief was more that certain people were linked to, for example, the ISI, the Saudi Royal Family, the other Bin Ladens, CIA black ops in Kosovo, Chechnya etc were afraid that said links would make them look extremely bad in light of 9/11.  Possibly criminally bad in some cases, in others probably just enough to be universally reviled by US public opinion.

Thus the coverup wasn't how things occured on the day, but the circumstances around it.  For example, the 9/11 Commission's redacted conclusion about the role of Saudi Arabia in the attacks.  The exact levels of collusion between US intelligence and radical Islam.  This covert smuggling network that Sibel Edmonds talks about.  Drugs too, going by Hopsicker's investigation.

Also, the 9/11 Truthers were quickly taken over by LaRouchites (who, it should be recalled, had significant links to the Reagan administration and have their own intelligence network, the EIR) and ex-military/spook types.  So yes, again.

Thought so.

It just seemed a little too pat, you know?

I wonder if there's a handle in there, something to latch onto.

[Cain]

Handle?  Sorry, I've had 2 hours of sleep, so I'm probably being slow.

[Doktor Howl]

Handle?  Sorry, I've had 2 hours of sleep, so I'm probably being slow.

Counter-propaganda.  Something that could be used to peel the salvageable truthers out of their little dream world.

[P3nT4gR4m]

It is.

It's my personal opinion that this, and the previously outlined Chechen connection (which would seem to fall under the rubric of "Gladio B") explains a lot of the weirdness around 9/11.  Edmond's allegations have always been somewhat hard to swallow, but the response of the Bush administration to her attempts to talk lend a hell of a lot of credence to what she says.

I've always believed that 911 happened as advertised, but that it was ALLOWED to happen, either through utter incompetence, willful disregard of General Clark's warnings, or (more likely) both.

Thing is, it's hard to publicly question it because of the Truther-Tards, which have so completely poisoned the well that I'm beginning to suspect they had a little "help".

Conspiracy theory is a resource that I'm pretty sure is exploited constantly by the Top Secret / National Security Mob.

If there isn't a department of misinformation tasked with spoonfeeding them grade-A prime bullshit then our governments really are complete fucking idiots.

[Left]

It is.

It's my personal opinion that this, and the previously outlined Chechen connection (which would seem to fall under the rubric of "Gladio B") explains a lot of the weirdness around 9/11.  Edmond's allegations have always been somewhat hard to swallow, but the response of the Bush administration to her attempts to talk lend a hell of a lot of credence to what she says.

I've always believed that 911 happened as advertised, but that it was ALLOWED to happen, either through utter incompetence, willful disregard of General Clark's warnings, or (more likely) both.

Thing is, it's hard to publicly question it because of the Truther-Tards, which have so completely poisoned the well that I'm beginning to suspect they had a little "help".

This is what I believe also. 
But the idea that the twin towers were rigged to explode I find a bit ludicrous.  You whack a jet plane with a full fuel tank into a building, it's not going to do the building any favors.

Conspiracy theory is a resource that I'm pretty sure is exploited constantly by the Top Secret / National Security Mob.

If there isn't a department of misinformation tasked with spoonfeeding them grade-A prime bullshit then our governments really are complete fucking idiots.

Agreed.

[Cain]

Handle?  Sorry, I've had 2 hours of sleep, so I'm probably being slow.

Counter-propaganda.  Something that could be used to peel the salvageable truthers out of their little dream world.

Oh right.  Maybe.  Most of the original "truthers", ie; before the LaRouchites turned up, tend to believe something along these lines anyway.  I first heard of Sibel Edmonds from Jeff Wells, for example.  I think the crop after that tend to be either purposefully disingenous, or so caught up in a fantasy of being an engineering expert fighting the power that it would hurt their ego to admit they were wrong.

Also, it was 12 years ago now.  I suspect the pool of people who continue to be interested in 9/11 will steadily decrease from here on in, with only the worst fantasists keeping up the game.