"We should not underestimate the importance of this story of Bin Laden's visits to Turkey, if the story is true. It would be the first confirmation that I know of, outside Sibel Edmonds herself, that there was a Turkish connection to al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. And it fits with Sibel's story: she has consistently said that Turkish countries and lobbying/cultural organizations are tied to al-Qaeda through money laundering and other illegal activities. This article clearly states that Bin Laden was in Turkey to meet with the "most distinguished representatives of the Turkish financial elite."i must admit that i was startled by the allegations in the story - not only that obl was a guest of the distinguished turks, but also that there were 'training camps' in cyprus (i've always been skeptical of 'terrrorist training camps' - it sounds like propaganda) - however i'm really not deep in the weeds of osama's to-ing and fro-ing.
One can see, if the article's charges are true, why the American Turkish Council would have wanted to penetrate the FBI translation program after 9-11. The exposure of Turkey, Turkic and Baltic countries, and related organizations to al-Qaeda money laundering would have been very bad for business. Of course, in retrospect, they needn't have bothered, for the Bush Administration was always going to be on their side( with a little help from the feckless Democrats.)
It would be nice to get Sibel's input on this- to see if this was a report she was aware of and if she gives the report any credence."
also - i'm not necessarily comfortable with miguel's characterization that the ATC infiltrated the FBI translation unit *after* 911 - i suspect that it happened beforehand
damien seems to know more about this stuff than anyone. damien, any thoughts?
finally, when i hear 'gray wolves' , for some reason i'm reminded of p2, which reminds me of ledeen, which brings me back to larisa's focus on those ledeen meetings in rome & paris.
i'm so dizzy... i guess that's the point
4 comments:
Look, I've referred here to OBL's role - or non role - in all of this. But keep in mind that Pakistan's ISI was a key liason with the hijackers. I've got no reason to believe that building plans went anywhere near OBL, but they certainly could have, given the links spelled out by Miguel (which I noticed just after I posted).
First, like you Lukery, I suspect the ATC infiltration of the FBI was pre 911.
I would not disagree with Miguel in claiming OBL was involved through Turkey. But it does raise some interesting questions. Could people like Jan Dickerson be part of an extended Al Qaeda network through Turkey? My suspicion is that she was part of the Turkish connections of the criminal US-headed RogueNet.
My key idea was that building plans provided only a month or so before 911 were likely for some kind of briefing to associates, rather than actual bomb installations. But I'm not sure.
RogueNet, as I termed it, goes back to Poppy Bush as head of the CIA and Iran/Contra and has, at times, liased with elements of the Russian, Israeli and Turkish mafia in regard to drugs and arms trafficking. In Turkey this would involve military insiders. RogueNet piggybacks on US intelligence and is just the Bushes/Neocons controlled intelligence operatives or crime connections used by them at any particular time - in the US it consists of elements of the CIA, State Dept etc. Remember, this is a full on criminal cabal using the organs of the State. (And not everybody has to know everything. RogueNet operatives could have advanced the 911 attacks while believing they were just engaging in criminal 'business as usual' such as drug trafficking.)
Lukery: "...why on earth they would consider helping the plot along - presumably RogueNet would get nearly all the benefit by simply letting it happen, without any of the associated risks"
Poppy Bush, their RogueNet operatives, and the neocons who were privy to OBL intentions, weren't about to let 911 happen willy-nilly. Typical US overplanning. It started as an intention by OBL to attack the US using planes, with ISI agents acting as handlers for the hijackers. RogueNet took the process over in a big way from very early on (while keping their role shielded from the terrorists). It just grew like topsy with RogueNet putting in other stuff like anthrax attacks and the destruction of financial records in WTC 7. There is also the idea that the hijackers couldn't have carried out 911 without help from intelligence agencies. The ISI paid them, but who ensured they knew which planes to hijack etc? The idea that they could even fly the planes into the WTC is doubtful. (link)
Keep in mind that the single action that most facilitated the attacks on the WTC buildings and the Pentagon was the failure of standard FAA/NORAD procedures which would have ensured that, as a likely worst case scenario, only four planes would have been destroyed. All of the buildings would have remained intact. How could the hijackers be sure of flying the planes into the WTC buildings if normally they would be intercepted by a fighter plane within 15 mins? Or that NORAD would stand down?
All of this points to US control of key aspects of 911.
Sibel, also supports this indirectly (but I've lost the reference, dammit). She was asked somewhere about whether 911 was an inside job and she said something to the effect that you only had to look at the NORAD (non) response. I'll try to dig it up.
There is also this bit. The general plans for 911 were several years in the planning and appear to have been known to a far greater number of people than is commonly believed. There is, for example, all the stuff about Randy GlassGlass as an undercover FBI agent. In Operation Diamondback he taped Pakistani intelligence agent R.G. Abbas who was - with his associates Diaa Moshen and Mohamed (Mike) Malik - allegedly attempting to procure weaponry, including nuclear, for Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Abbas pointed to the WTC towers and said that they were “coming down.” Glass reported about the impending attack on the WTC to Sen.Robert Graham in July 2001. When Glass relayed his information to the State Dept, about the same time, a top aide to Colin Powell disclosed that it was known that a plan was afoot to fly airplanes into the WTC, but that it couldn’t be discussed(!) (link) (link)
My basic premise is that there is considerable evidence for 911 as a US inside job. I can't make a lot of sense out of the passing of the building plans other than as some briefing exercise on the upcoming event to people in the know.
One cautionary feature about Randy Glass - he was a former con artist (not too much of a problem if you are working undercover fo the FBI).
Also, his conversation with Abbas took place in June 1999, fully two years before he allegedly reported it to Sen. Robert Graham. Leaving that aside, his connections to arms trafficking to the Taliban is well sourced and the story is certainly possible and has a ring of truth to it to me. So that means the destruction of the WTC towers was on the drawing boards for several years.
Lukery/Damien,
As far the ATC infiltration of the FBI translation program, I would like to present a third possibility: the ATC tried to infiltrate the FBI before 9/11, but it was only after 9/11 that the opportunity came up when there were multiple positions for Turkish translators that came open.
"My basic premise is that there is considerable evidence for 911 as a US inside job."
I don't discount that idea, but I have not yet seen any slam dunk evidence that is the case. I guess we have to define what 'inside job' means: does that mean all the way to the Presidential level or does that mean rogue elements with in certain U.S. agencies in collaboration with al-Qaeda.
As much as I despise the Bush Administration, I don't think Bush and Cheney are quite that evil- or that competent to pull something like that off. However, I would not completely discount the thought that there might be an off-the-shelf, Iran-Contra, BCCI-like network that might have collaborated with the terrorists.
As far as Sibel goes, I think her response on Maria Heller leaves it open as to whether she knows enough to make a judgement on this question one way or another.
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