"I write freelance for Armenian papers in the US and around the world and thought you might be interested in my recently published article below.The article begins:
I believe the Turkish - Jewish connection may be the missing link that completes the circle."
"Washington’s widening spy investigations threaten to expose the lovers’ triangle of Neoconservatives, the Jewish lobby, and the Turkish lobby.i don't have much comment about the piece but go read it. yes, the plame/sibel/aipac cases are related, and yes, a significant portion of turkey-related issues are dominated by lobbyists.
There are three major espionage cases: Sibel Edmonds/FBI/Turkey, Larry Franklin/AIPAC/Israel, and Valerie Plame/CIA/Libby.
The latter two (and perhaps the first) involve so-called Neoconservatives."
i will note however that sibelgate seems to provide us with a weird confluence of motivations for the neocons and State. i hadn't really appreciated the apparent dichotomy till emptywheel left me a comment the other day which reads, in part:
"Now one thing I will absolutely entertain is that the Powell wing (Powell, Armitage, Grossman--note that most accounts of his retirement put Grossman firmly in the Powell camp, not at all in the Neocon camp) is corrupt and nefarious in its own right. I think it's too easy for us to assume the Neocons are the only or worst enemies for this country. On the Plame issue, the Neocons appear to be at fault. But from your description here, you are (IMO) making a much stronger argument that the Realists are at fault in the Sibel Edmonds allegations than the Neocons."emptywheel is partly correct. she is correct to highlight that there are two different games in town, but incorrect, IMO, to suggest that the real game is State vs Neocon, and incorrect to put grossman and armitage (and even colin!) in the presumed 'Powell ring'.
The OVP went beserk with the Plame thing, for one reason or other, even though the 'Realist' team apparently engineered the outing. i'd pay $1000 to have a coffee with the person who was clever enough to engineer that.
david points to many of the same issues and connections that i do, so take a look. all of these stories are connected at the roots like aspens, turning.
1 comment:
One issue you haven’t touched upon is, are the people in the American Turkish Council and AIPAC to whom Feith, Perle and Grossman are presumably passing U.S. classified info (including nuclear secrets) Turkish and Israeli intelligence operatives, or are they independent operators.
Sibel has often said that what she ran across as a translator was not old fashioned, state on state espionage, but something more nefarious. She seems to imply that organizations like American Turkish Council are intermediaries in the espionage game. In other words, secrets hypothetically are passed from the Pentagon to the ATC, for which cold cash would be paid. In turn the ATC hypothetically passes the secret on to the Turkish government.
But Edmonds has claimed classified information is being sold to “the highest bidder”. She told Scott Horton in the January, 05 interview that “they [semi-legit organizations] don't care who that 'highest bidder' is. It may be some fanatic, from certain countries we consider evil, or it may be some other country we consider Communist. It doesn't matter. If the highest bidder is coming up with the money, they provide it.” (This type of intelligence-gathering for sale on the black market is not unprecedented. This is one of the activities engaged in by BCCI)
So what it appears the whistleblower is saying is that these secrets are not necessarily going to Turkey and Israel. Which means one of two things:
- State and DoD officials are passing on secrets to ATC and AIPAC, knowing full well they could end up in the hands of American enemies like al-Qaeda.
-State and DoD officials assume the secrets they pass to “semi-legit” organizations are being sent to friendly countries like Israel and Turkey, but the intermediaries are untrustworthy wheeler dealers who are turning around and selling to whomever offers the most cash.
As much as I dislike Feith and Perle, I have to think the second scenario is more likely. Sibel has accused DOD and State officials of treason, but by treason she specifically told Horton it meant passing on secrets to “quasi-allies”.
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