* the other day i wrote:

"Xymphora was the first to identify Grossman - anyone else you can think of, xymph?"

he responds here (thnx xymph):

"Frankly, I am still having trouble getting my mind around a Turkish connection to September 11. Any reference to Turkey is conspicuous by its absence. You could understand Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Afghanistan, but Turkey comes completely out of left field... Sibel Edmonds is the sole source for any Turkish connection, and it is difficult to imagine any official Turkish reason to attack the United States.
[]
Of course, no one can rule out the fact that individuals working for Turkey may have had another agenda. The Turkish ultra-nationalist fascist mafia controls much of the drug trade to Europe, and must have been hurting because the Taliban had restricted the flow of Afghan heroin. The Turkish mafia would have had a motive to assist the neocons in creating the ‘Pearl Harbor’ that would lead to an attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan. In fact, the heroin trade has been completely restored (and then some). Could there have been some kind of neocon/Turkish mafia deal, coordinated through Turkish employees in the United States, whereby the Turkish mafia assisted in pulling off 9–11 in return for a promise of an attack against the Taliban? Could be. However, there is no evidence for it whatsoever except for vague allegations of possible FBI investigations made by one, uncorroborated, whistleblower.

As usual, I need to find a good reason for people to take big risks, and I just don’t see it. In the absence of any other evidence, and the possibility that Edmonds simply misunderstood what the FBI was investigating, I remain unconvinced of the Turkish angle."

that's more polite than he usually is on this issue ;-)

my oft-repeated personal view is that this has a whole lot more to do with personal finances than any national-interest, or geo-strategic, argument. sibel has also repeatedly made the same claim. (I'd argue against her if she yelled ISRAEL or OIL or any of those other catch-alls)

Sibel points to this article by Giraldi as the closest thing to her story. Note how it's all about personal enrichment. I'd argue strenuously against the emphasis Giraldi puts on the miniscule bribes to Feith & Perle. I suspect that those contracts were simply necessary to justify whatever contact occured between the participants.

So when xymph says: "I remain unconvinced of the Turkish angle" - i agree - apart from:
a) it appears that there may have been some Turkish individuals involved, and
b) the people who are profiting from this enterprise, for one reason or other, decided to white-ant an organization which happens to be Turkish in name (ATC), and/or
c) because of some weird confluence of (historical and/or geographical and/or other) events, congress is willing to bank-roll arms sales which happen to be called 'Turkish' via which certain relevant people are able to enrich themselves.

red bandanas

* jeralyn:

"Message to Al Gore: Jump in or give a final signal you are out. The time is now. Whomever the Democratic candidate will be in 2008 needs to muster all of our support at the earliest possible moment. We can't provide that that so long as we are waiting on you. A simple yay or nay will do it."

* damien in the comments:

" I'm not doing Turkey this week. But I can offer you a good deal on one slightly used (and completely unmarked!) red bandana courtesy of Culhavoc which survived the Flight 93 crash. It turned up with a whole lot of other wreckage which was mysteriously not observed by those who were first on the scene. According to the miracle cell phone calls from Flight 93 the terrorists had donned red bandanas (which they must have picked up on their last trip to Vegas.) Anyhow, given that green is the color of Islamic martyrs and red is frowned upon by the Prophet, we can put the red bandana stuff up down to some low level CIA flunkie who has since been promoted.

Culhavoc also provides some details on Andrew Grove "

oy!

red bandanas

* jeralyn:

"Message to Al Gore: Jump in or give a final signal you are out. The time is now. Whomever the Democratic candidate will be in 2008 needs to muster all of our support at the earliest possible moment. We can't provide that that so long as we are waiting on you. A simple yay or nay will do it."

* damien in the comments:

" I'm not doing Turkey this week. But I can offer you a good deal on one slightly used (and completely unmarked!) red bandana courtesy of Culhavoc which survived the Flight 93 crash. It turned up with a whole lot of other wreckage which was mysteriously not observed by those who were first on the scene. According to the miracle cell phone calls from Flight 93 the terrorists had donned red bandanas (which they must have picked up on their last trip to Vegas.) Anyhow, given that green is the color of Islamic martyrs and red is frowned upon by the Prophet, we can put the red bandana stuff up down to some low level CIA flunkie who has since been promoted.

Culhavoc also provides some details on Andrew Grove "

oy!

Jennings Brewster

* here's something i've never noted before - from wapo:

"The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates."

isn't that odd. does anyone have D&B who can check out the exact reference? Are they the same company with different names? different companies, same address?

I'm surprised the wingnuts haven't gone apeshit over that fact - mocking how stoopid the lefty eurofags in france State the CIA are cos they can't even keep the name of their front companies straight AND SO PLAME OBVIOUSLY WASNT UNDERCOVER.

* this too is too cute from Novak when he outed JB BJ:

"A footnote: In July when he revealed himself as author of a report commissioned by the CIA, Wilson sought a book agent. After being turned down by a prominent agent, he has now found one."

that's the footnote to a 2 para article. also note novakular's odd description of Wilson: "author of a report commissioned by the CIA" wtf?

countless My Lai massacres

* dahr Jamil:

" The media feeding frenzy around what has been referred to as "Iraq's My Lai" has become frenetic. Focus on US Marines slaughtering at least 20 civilians in Haditha last November is reminiscent of the media spasm around the "scandal" of Abu Ghraib during April and May 2004.

Yet just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not stopped either.
[]
There have been countless My Lai massacres, and we cannot blame 0.1% of the soldiers on the ground in Iraq for killing as many as a quarter of a million Iraqis, when it is the policies of the Bush administration that generated the failed occupation to begin with."

* byron york has a hit-piece out on Larry Johnson. SusanUnPC's smackdown of York here and here

* juancole has the not so great news about afghanistan.

* emptywheel's 3.3 anatomy of a smear

* in case you missed it - emptywheel and i had a little discussion in the comments here about factions and plame

* in case you missed it - miguel noted that in Sibel's great interview with Chris Delio, she mentioned that the person of interest wasn't actually a govt official in the Turkish embassy. see the update here

Blair lied to Goldsmith. war ensued

* UK Telegraph:

"WASHINGTON played a key role in persuading the (UK) AttorneyGeneral that military action against Saddam Hussein in 2003 was lawful, according to an official government disclosure yesterday.

An internal note from Tony Blair that Iraq was in breach of a UN Security Council resolution also played a part in the decision to invade. Forced by Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, to disclose more detail about the decision, the office of Lord Goldsmith, QC, the Attorney-General, spelt out who he had consulted and relied upon for advice before declaring that an invasion was covered by international law.
[]
Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Attorney-General, said: “The critical thing that emerges is the impact of a written assurance from the Prime Minister that there was a material breach of 1441. It seems to confirm . . . that the Attorney-General was misled by the Prime Minister.”

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: “There is nothing here to indicate that there was new intelligence on weapons of mass destruction or legal arguments to justify the change of mind.” The “irresistible implication” was that it was from “political pressure”."

* guardian:

"(Goldsmith's) office issued a "narrative" of the attorney general's thinking over the 10-day period that confirms that he hardened his opinion that an invasion would be lawful following requests from the chief of defence staff - and others - to confirm it."

ashcroft's plame-gate recusal

* clemons:

"Now Zoellick is planning to leave the government after hearing through the grapevine that he did not make the short list to succeed Treasury Secretary John Snow.
The question now is who will come in after Zoellick. Sources have told TWN that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prefers to appoint Nick Burns as her DepSec.
But Cheney may use his influence to block Burns, whom many consider to be too much of a "diplomatic type". During the recent UN Security Council skirmishes with Russia and China over how to deal with Iran, John Bolton and various other Cheney acolytes began a whisper campaign against Nick Burns.
But Cheney had wanted John Bolton in the DepSec job rather than Zoellick -- and in this next round, Cheney will not want Burns to help further strengthen Rice's hand in foreign and national security policy.
It will be interesting to watch the sides square off, and whomever does succeed Zoellick will give some indication of the relative strengths of Rice and Cheney in the administration."

* you've heard me rail against AP ad nauseum. check out the latest details of the slime of Harry Reid.

* demonow has a great piece about all the other 'hadithas' - why is it that amygoodman is the only person who seems to be able to do stories like this? (make sure you listen to the whole piece)

* from a comment at EW's place:

"Tonight I heard Murray Waas interviewed by Sam Sedar on "The Majority Report". Wass was suggesting that in the next couple of weeks we will definately be hearing more about the 3 months that Attorney General John Ashcroft stayed on the investigation before recusing himself."

defining success downward

* amy goodman :

"In Nevada, protesters have forced the Bush administration to indefinitely postpone a controversial bomb test designed to help the military better understand nuclear bunker busters. The government had planned to set off 700 tons of explosives in the Nevada Test Site creating an explosion 50 times more powerful than the Army’s largest conventional bomb. According to government documents, the test – known as Divine Strake -- was needed to determine the “proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities.”"

yay for the good guys!

* Time:

"Nowhere is the fighting more intense than in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province and for the moment the seething heart of the Sunni-led insurgency. The city remains a stronghold of insurgents loyal to Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who U.S. intelligence believes is hiding in an area north of the city. "

ramadi is toast. must.get.zarqawi.

* Time:

"TIME spent a week with Kilo Company, the 120-person unit that goes head to head with the insurgents every day. The goal is to lure al-Qaeda into attacks, which Kilo Company has been doing successfully: in a single week, five men were wounded, three foot patrols were ambushed, and there were unrelenting attacks from small-arms fire and mortars."

defining success downward!

US ignores nuke smuggling investigation

* reddhedd:

"Only George Bush could take a country run by a violent dictator, where the people were oppressed and murdered and terrorized by secret police and tortured for disagreeing with the government…and turn it into an even less stable country where people are murdered and tortured and kidnapped and killed in cold blood and worse, inflaming sectarian and tribal rivalries and raising the bar on the fight to control Iraq’s valuable oil reserves, as armed militias for each faction fight amongst themselves and US troops for control. "

* via reddhedd:

"Today, the Court took that very signifiant step, holding that "when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline." This apparently means that employees may be disciplined for their official capacity speech, without any First Amendment scrutiny, and without regard to whether it touches on matters of "public concern" — a very significant doctrinal development…."

* via rawstory:

A Swiss investigation into an international nuclear smuggling network is being hampered by a lack of cooperation from the United States.

Authorities in Bern say they asked US officials for judicial assistance a year ago but have yet to receive a reply.

Washington's failure to respond to "multiple" Swiss appeals was revealed last week by former United Nations weapons inspector David Albright.

He told a US hearing into the nuclear trafficking ring run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, that he found the lack of cooperation by the US "frankly embarrassing".

"It is difficult to understand the actions of the US government. Its lack of assistance needlessly complicates this important investigation," said Albright, who is president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security."

why would they do that?

war on terrorism

* arkin on Haditha:

"The truth of the matter, I hear from military sources, and an explanation I suspect is completely true, is that what happened in Hadithah that day has happened more times than the Marines and the Pentagon would like to admit, and more times certainly than the American public would like to admit.
And that's the issue."

* digby:

"When you think about it, a "war on terrorism" is actually a "war on warfare" which kind of brings the whole damned thing home, doesn't it? All warfare is terrifying. Metaphorically, a war on warfare is a nice concept. I can picture some lovely bumper stickers and t-shirts along the lines of "War is not healthy for children and other living things." "Let's declare war on warfare" expresses a rather basic premise that war is a bad thing.
[]
Warfare as it has been understood for millenia will not "beat" it. The GWOT masterminds knew this which is why the phrase War on Terrorism was coined: it represents a permanent state of war, which is something else entirely.
[]
And I suspect, too, that I will be long in my grave before the "war on terrorism" is a thing of the past. It was a terrible accident of history that September 11th happened when the lunatic neocon cabal was in power. Nothing could have been worse. It was more damaging than the attacks themselves. We'll be dealing with the fall out from that strange happenstance for a generation."

...monitoring in a 9/11 investigation.

In my Sibel post the other day i asked who were the targets of the 911 investigation who were allowed to leave the country months after 911.

This article by Gail Sheehy in the NewYorkObserver from Jan 04 helps us get a little closer to an answer

Firstly, here's Sheehy:

When Sibel invited the visitors in for tea, she said, Major Dickerson began asking Matthew Edmonds if the couple had many friends from Turkey here in the U.S. Mr. Edmonds said he didn't speak Turkish, so they didn't associate with many Turkish people. The Air Force officer then began talking up a Turkish organization in Washington that he described, according to the Edmondses, as "a great place to make connections and it could be very profitable."

Here's David Rose in VF:

According to Sibel, Douglas asked if she and Matthew were involved with the local Turkish community, and whether they were members of two of its organized groups—the American-Turkish Council (A.T.C.) and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (A.T.A.A.). “He said the A.T.C. was a good organization to belong to,” Matthew says. “It could help to ensure that we could retire early and live well, which was just what he and his wife planned to do. I said I was aware of the organization, but I thought you had to be in a relevant business in order to join.

So Rose mentions both the ATC and the ATAA - although when you compare the two paras, it is apparent that the organization in the Sheehy piece is the ATC.

Back to Sheehy:

Sibel was sickened. This organization was the very one she and Jan Dickerson were monitoring in a 9/11 investigation...

So the FBI was 'monitoring' the ATC regarding 911. It's not obvious whether the 'monitoring' about 911 occured after 911, or prior to, as well. We do know that the ATC was being monitored prior to 911 - and we know that Sibel has talked about the 911 warnings in April - although that came from Behrooz Sarshar, not from the ATC.

We also know that Brewster Jennings was watching the ATC prior to 911 (or do we? Sibel told me that she was 'aware of' BJ from her time at the FBI. We know Plame was at the ATC function where she met Wilson, although she wasn't on duty there apparently - but she was somehow in the milieu)

We also know that Sibel says that much of her material came from Counter-Intelligence operations, not counter-terrorism. We know that Plame was specifically CT - do we have any evidence that BJ was also involved in CI? I presume that they were.

Back to Sheehy:

Ms. Dickerson and her husband offered to introduce the Edmondses to people connected to the Turkish embassy in Washington who belonged to this organization.

"These two people were the top targets of our investigation!" Ms. Edmonds said of the people the Dickersons proposed to introduce them to...

The targets of that F.B.I. investigation left the country abruptly in 2002.

"These were documents directly related to a 9/11 investigation and suspects, and they had been sent to field agents in at least two cities." By accident, Ms. Edmonds discovered the breach--up to 400 pages of translations marked "not pertinent"--and insisted that those classified translations be sent back so she could retranslate them

"We discovered some amazing stuff," she remembered.

The first half-dozen translations were transcripts from an F.B.I. wiretap targeting a Turkish intelligence officer working out of the Turkish embassy in Washington, D.C.... Ms. Edmonds said she found them to reveal that the officer had spies working for him inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon

OK - first Sheehy says "people connected to the Turkish embassy" (apparently "two") and then in another context she says "a Turkish intelligence officer working out of the Turkish embassy"
(update - see below)

from the Hogue interview

"SE: On the other hand I have seen several, several top targets for these investigations of these terrorist activities that were allowed to leave the country--I'm not talking about weeks, I'm talking about months after 9/11"

OK - so it appears there were several top targets (apparently not the Dickersons) who were allowed to leave the country months after 911. The Dickersons mentioned two of them to Sibel and offered introductions, and one of them was a Turkish intelligence officer working out of the Turkish embassy. For some reason, they apparently thought that they would be safe in the US for a while, but apparently they, or others, decided that they needed to leave - perhaps they were feeling the heat from Sibel. At least two of these people belonged to the ATC.

I wonder how we could find out who they were. I imagine that it would be of some interest to know who the top targets of the 911 investigation are/were - particularly because these people may have already been under suspicion before the attacks, precisely because of the possibility of such impending attacks.

So how do we found out who these people are? Is there any chance we could find a list of 'Turkish intelligence officers' at the time? Unlikely. How about those who 'belonged to' the ATC? 'belonged to' could mean a bunch of things - staff? executive? member? Their website doesn't offer a list of members (only companies & orgs).

I don't even know where to start - and I can't think of anyone who might have been a top 911 target who might have been working in the Turkish embassy, who was a member of the ATC and left the country in 2002. (Damien - anyone come to mind?)

In an interview with Scott, Sibel says:

"SE: Exactly. In fact, (AIPAC and ATC) have so many crossovers, if you look at their members you will see many that are members of both organizations. And if you look at the people who are in the management and are in charge of these lobbying groups, you come across the same names, which is very interesting."

I wonder if the ATC members who left the US in 2002 were also members of AIPAC. That might help us a little bit

Moving on, back to Sheehy

the "Turkish intelligence officer... had spies working for him inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon"

I wonder how many of them we know. At State, we can presume Grossman - anyone else we can think of? Edelman was OVP. Sibel told me that she didnt know that Bolton was involved.

How about at the Pentagon? We know that we can probably count Feith, and possibly much of OSP. We know that Franklin and Rhode both speak Farsi, and were both involved in the Rome / Paris meetings with Ledeen and Ghorbanifar. We also know that Sibel called Franklin a patsy. It's also possible that she is referring to Perle here - although the DPB isnt officially Pentagon.
Wolfowitz was also at the Pentagon from the start of 2001 (and was also mentioned in the Giraldi article)

Xymphora was the first to identify Grossman - anyone else you can think of, xymph?

gotta run, more later.
---------
update - miguel in the comments notes a clarification about the 'Turkish Intelligence Officer'
This from the July 04 interview with Chris Deliso:

"CD: As I understand it, Jan Dickerson was also trying to protect one criminal associate – a Turkish-speaking suspect of an FBI investigation – by blocking translations referring to him. Yes?

SE: Correct.

CD: And this was an official working out of the Turkish Embassy in Washington –

SE: No, that part is not correct. I cannot talk about the position or the job of this person –

CD: But in the other media stories about your case, he was identified as –

SE: Yes, I know. The term "official" was used in the senators' memos from their [summer 2002] meetings with the FBI, and so then when cited by the media it became automatically assumed that he was government – but since this individual has never been named, I can only describe him as working on behalf of a "semi-legitimate" organization."

hmmm. So this person wasn't government (military maybe?), but was (presumably) "working out of the Turkish embassy" (or as Sheehy puts it: "connected to the Turkish embassy ") on 'behalf' of the ATC.

a special shoutout to Baby Kaj who joined our world over the weekend

much love

Iraq: Not a Civil War

* note to journos who may not have got the memo. it is ok to refer to the situation in East Timor as a civil war - 27 people have died there in a week!

as such, it is ok to run photos which show actual people, close-up, and action. lots of action.




iraq however is not in a civil war. Remember: "The Iraqi's looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw." Thusly, please continue to show anodyne photos of soldiers, preferably from a distance, when 40 people die in baghdad.

for example CBS


ABC

NYT

USAT


thank you.

that is all.

vegetarian barbecues

* the sjmn has a good article about spying technology. incl this:

Law enforcement officials could analyze text traffic for suspicious patterns using software made by Attensity of Palo Alto. The majority of Attensity's customers are government agencies, including the NSA and Homeland Security, said the firm's Chief Executive Craig Norris.

"You don't even have to know what it is you're searching for,'' said Norris. "But you'll know it once you find it.''

For example, "if a terrorist is planning a bombing, they might say `Let's have a barbecue,' '' said Norris. "The software can detect if the word `barbecue' is being used more often than usual.''

got that? i'm not sure what the "more often than usual" benchmark is, or how many sigmas you are allowed, or how that might possibly be useful. vegetarians had better start throwing the word 'bbq' into some sentences in case their lack of the use of the term makes them look suspicious.

bilbray & busby

* stirling: "But once... the attempt to topple Saddam by coup and economic coercion taken, the reality is that there was no turning back. The very process of attempting to overthrow Saddam by proxy was pulverizng the base of his society, was also destroying the social infrastructure which would have made a democracy possible."

* laura highlights that the people in the bus when the cbs crew got hit were MEK. Laura:

"The story goes on to cite a bus passenger who survived the blast who theorized the bus was targeted by Shiites who hate the MEK. But it doesn't sound like the MEK is confined to Camp Ashraf anymore, does it?"

* from the same article, this is also interesting:

"The soldier grabbed him by the hand, apparently intending to take him to his officers for questioning, but then the man detonated his explosive belt, which also set off a bomb in the box."

is that true? a guy puts a box in a bus, walks away, and then remotely detonates the bus and himself? that's an odd strategy.

* SDSU is throwing a democracyfest.us party in july. let's hope there are some semblances of democracy left by then. howie dean is gonna be there, and robert greenwald too. even brad friedman.

* calipendence has a challenge. in the msnbc article, bilbray distances himself from the corruption stench: "I wouldn't know Wilkes if I saw him in the street" - can anyone find a pic of bilbray and wilkes together? there's just one week till the election...

* calipendence:

"Now this story that just came out is funky. It basically postulates that someone from Busby's campaign is calling up right wingers to tell them to vote for Griffith... Hah! Noone I know is doing it. But if it works, I'm happy!"

funny. the wingers aren't very happy with billbray.

* usnews:

"Staffers from the National Republican Congressional Committee are quietly telling GOP House members to prepare for a possible loss in the June 6 special election to fill the seat of Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now in prison for taking bribes. The Southern California district is heavily Republican, but some GOP insiders believe that Democrat Francine Busby will defeat former GOP Rep. Brian Bilbray and go on to win a full term in November. More alarming some worry that a Bilbray defeat could signal the GOP's loss of control of the House."

haditha massacre: old news

* a comment over at FDL from a post about RalphReed: "There is no war on fucking in America. We just need to learn how to fuck like republicans."

* Independent:

"The incident is now being described as potentially the worst war crime since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, comparable to the Abu Ghraib scandal and reminiscent of the massacre of several hundred Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968. But peace campaigners say the findings raise the prospect that other incidents reported to have involved the killing of "insurgents" actually involved the death of civilians."

indeed. i'm actually surprised at most of the reaction to the haditha story. people seem surprised. by my count, the number of iraqis dead because of this war is approximately 6,000 times the number of people murdered in the haditha massacre. i wonder how many other massacres occured - and whether it even matters how they were slaughtered. (btw - i wonder how long till some talking bobble will dismissively say 'this is old news')

* Karen Kwiatkowski:

"We will figuratively hang those Marines who participated in the slaughter at Haditha. We will also crucify those who did not participate, but failed to stop it, and those who helped to cover it up. We will not pity those young Americans we trained to kill when they failed to show mercy in a place they don’t understand, on a mission as frivolous as it is insincere. We will hold them responsible.

We ought to set our sights a bit higher, and begin in a serious way to politically destroy those people in Washington who placed our young men and women in Iraq, on such a frivolous and insincere mission. Those worthy of a criminal punishment include much of the Senate, many in the House, and of course, our great decider, his untrustworthy Vice President, and their Pentagon senior staff."

* pach:

"Terror is an emotion. Emotions are part of human nature and cannot be eradicated. A "War on Terror" is therefore a war on humanity. The Bush administration has exploited the fear and shock of a nation in the wake of a surprising and dramatic act of violence to whip national fear and paranoia into a constant boil. Why?
The evidence suggests the whole point has been to seize power and steal money. We are witnessing a creeping coup in the United States, the overthrow of the idea, promulgated by our founders and by writers like Tom Paine, that the "Law is King" "

read the rest

support our oops

Iran: the new power in the region

* soto:

"Our tough, rejectionist posture towards Iran was further undermined when the new al-Maliki government in Iraq came out in support of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Iran signaled it was tired of waiting for the Bush Administration to talk with it about Iraq’s future, and decided to work with regional states to forge their own future. Iran also pledged $1 billion in economic assistance to the Shiites and Kurds in Iraq, and to work with Iraq on sealing their border. In short, any window Bush had to influence events on the ground in Iraq has passed, and Iran is the new power in the region, thanks to Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld."

* laura had an article in the LAT (congrats1) on the weekend:

"Amid concern that the U.S. is drifting toward eventual confrontation with Iran, a growing number of influential statesmen, Republican senators and foreign policy experts are stepping up pressure on the Bush administration to consider doing what no U.S. administration has done in 27 years: talk directly with Iran.

In recent congressional hearings, think-tank conferences, op-ed essays and media appearances, Republican heavyweights — including former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) — have publicly urged the administration to leave the current path of escalation and join European allies in direct talks with Tehran."

* jeebus. indonesian earthquake total up to 9000. let's hope it doesn't double, again.

* leopold:

"The Bush administration knew Enron was on a collision course two months before the high-flying energy company collapsed in a wave of accounting scandals that wiped out $60 billion in shareholder value and left thousands of company employees penniless.
It was August 15, 2001, when Enron lobbyist Pat Shortridge met with then-White House Economic Adviser Robert McNally, one day after Jeff Skilling made a stunning announcement that he was stepping down as president of Enron.
Shortridge confided in McNally that Enron was headed for a financial meltdown - one that could very well cripple the country's energy markets - and urged the White House economic adviser to alert President Bush about the company's financial problems so he could help put together a federal bailout, according to thousands of pages of documents about the meeting released by the government's Enron Task Force."

God Damned Angry Liberals

* driftglass:

"God Damned Angry Liberals and their God Damned America-Hating Media!

Spoiling a perfectly nice Monday when we’re supposed to take a minute or two away from the barbecue to remember those that have fallen in old-timey wars by blabbing about those that are dying here and now.

Don’t they know that all of the honoring of the dead is supposed to be packed into one special, ritualized day? Girded by speeches and wreaths and proclamations and taps, and not gummed up with a lot of hoo-ha about the "I"-word? Because while on every other day of the year, pointing out the cost of Iraq in blood and treasure is merely disloyal to the Dear Leader, on Memorial Day it is so much worse: It’s in bad taste.

It makes people uncomfortable.
[]
Why do they insist on Phelpsing our solemn, fleeting national mediation on the price of war by dragging the actual price of a particular war into it and waiving it in our solemn national faces?

Why do they trouble our Beautiful Minds with such filthy little facts?

Have they no decency at all?"

Memorial Day 2007

* booman:

" Robert Kagan is the co-founder with William Kristol of the Project for the New American Century and he thinks it will be better for America if the Democrats win the 2008 contest for the Presidency. If that surprises you, you haven't been paying attention. As far as the PNAC crew goes, power isn't about being a Republican or a Democrat, it's about owning both parties. And, fortunately for us, Kagan is spectacularly upfront about this. To understand his mindset it's important to understand that he doesn't divide the world up into left and right, but into interventionist and isolationist. Kagan has representatives in the Democratic Party. They can loosely be described as the members of the Democratic Leadership Council and the writers at The New Republic."

(thnx don) Read the rest.

* meanwhile, Peter Beinart writes this nonsense:

DON'T LOOK now, but neoconservatism is making a comeback — and not among the Republicans who have made it famous but in the Democratic Party.

and George Will calls Beinart a Democrat Who Will Fight For America.

thus we get :

"Harpers: "Percentage of Americans who say they support air strikes against Iran “if diplomacy fails”: 51""

Happy Memorial Day - next year's will be even better, with lots more memories.

blogs: bring Hastert down

it's time to re-publish Democrats.com 's take on the Hastert bribery claims:

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Unlike his egomaniacal predecessor Newt Gingrich, House Speaker Denny Hastert likes to stay out of the limelight.

And for good reason. When Hastert opens his mouth, he tends to say cold-hearted things like "It looks like a lot of [New Orleans] could be bulldozed."

But is Denny Hastert's heart cold enough to take bribes to coverup Turkey's Armenian genocide?

According to an investigative report in Vanity Fair by David Rose, Hastert may have taken as much as $500,000 in campaign bribes in October 2000 to kill a Congressional resolution designating the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide.

According to Wikipedia, "Most estimations for the losses between 1915 to 1917-18 range from 600,000 —claimed mostly by the Government of Turkey and Turkish national historians— and from 1.2 to 1.5 million by most of the international community and the scholarship."

The Turkish government rejects the term "genocide," blaming instead "inter-ethnic strife, disease and famine during the turmoil of World War I." But dozens of countries call it "genocide," along with the European Parliament, the U.N., and many U.S. states.

But thanks to Denny Hastert, Congress refuses to call it genocide. And according to Vanity Fair, "a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000."

There is no question that Hastert pulled the Armenian genocide resolution off the floor of Congress on October 19, 2000, after it passed the International Relations Committee by a large majority. (Hastert blames Bill Clinton - as if Hastert ever did Clinton a single favor, besides trying to impeach him!)

The only question is whether he took campaign bribes to do it. As David Rose reported,

According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.’s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert’s campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.

Hastert himself was never heard in the recordings, Edmonds told investigators, and it is possible that the claims of covert payments were hollow boasts. Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert’s federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000.

In contrast, un-itemized contributions in the same period to the committee run on behalf of the House majority leader, Tom Delay, Republican of Texas, were only $99,000. An analysis of the filings of four other senior Republicans shows that only one, Clay Shaw of Florida, declared a higher total in un-itemized donations than Hastert over the same period: $552,000. The other three declared far less. Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Joe Barton, of Texas, claimed $265,000; Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, of California, got $212,000; and Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Thomas, of California, recorded $110,000.

Where there's smoke there's usually fire. And the smoke surrounding Hastert's role in this scandal is so thick you need a chainsaw to cut it.

This sounds like a perfect investigation for the progressive blogosphere, right?

So why is this important job falling to a little-known blogger from down under in Australia named Lukery, creator of http://disclosedenny.blogspot.com/

I searched "hastert armenian genocide" in Technorati, Google Blogs, The story has received minimal coverage so far:

• DemocracyNow's Amy Goodman interviewed David Rose and his source, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds last August.
• On 2/7/06, BradBlog published the response from Hastert's lawyer Randy Evans, and a detailed rebuttal by Sibel Edmonds. (Scott Horton blogged on that)

I can think of lots of bloggers and activists who should be all over this story:

• All of the folks investigating Hastert's puppetmaster Tom DeLay, including CampaignMoney.org
• All the folks covering FBI histleblower Sibel Edmonds
• Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com, the premier investigator of GOP Congressional scandals
• Laura Rozen of WarandPiece.com, who has done outstanding work on Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes & Co.
• Digby of Hullabalo, who understands GOP corruption better than anyone
• Joseph Cannon of Cannonfire, who can investigate a conspiracy better than anyone
• Larisa Alexandrovna of RawStory.com, one of the very first to investigate Jack Abramoff
• ReddHead of FireDogLake.com, who investigated Brent Wilkes
• Georgia10 of DailyKos.com, who is studying law in Chicago
• BuzzFlash.com, which is based in Chicago
• many others I can't think of off-hand

Let's get the blogosphere's top investigators on this story and help our heroic Australian cousin bring Hastert down!

hastert bribes

* josh:

"Denny Hastert knows what's coming down the pike. He's taking the opportunity of the Jefferson search warrant to float this specious constitutional argument and clip the investigators' wings on the most politically favorable terms."

thank god josh is back.

* josh also points to this speech by barney frank:

"What we now have is a Congressional leadership, the Republican part of which has said it is okay for law enforcement to engage in warrantless searches of the average citizen, now objecting when a search, pursuant to a validly issued warrant, is conducted of a Member of Congress."

it's almost time that the Disclose Denny campaign finally takes off

Fuck Peter Beinart

* "Humanity has reached a "defining moment" in our dominion over the planet and our ability to destroy it, according to the head of the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific institution. "The 21st century is the first in the Earth's history where one species has our planet's future in its hands and could jeopardise life's immense potential," Lord Rees told an audience at the Hay festival yesterday." (link)

* via don, here's a memorial day special flash - which is 18 months old - but still damning.

* oh jeebus! Peter Beinart continues to taint the libs. bless his sorry 'oops-i'm-sorry', war-mongering, lieberman -loving ass. thanks to he and Will Marshall and their ilk, not only will we see conservatives saying that Bush isnt really a conservative, now we have to deal with stupid fucking headlines like "Neocons in the Democratic Party". Jacob Heilbrunn, may your soul burn in hell, as well as whoever is paying you. Peter Beinart - put this quote on your fucking gravestone:

"Still, it is amusing to see that at the very moment when hawkish realists are trying to extirpate the neocon credo in the Republican Party, it's being revived in the Democratic Party that first brought it to life."

leaks and the leakers who leak them

I was chasing up some stuff re Miguel's latest comments about sibel and 'counter-intelligence' and i stumbled across an old comment from 'Mike' (who i think is now 'Miguel'):

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”.

interesting, no?

and i'm reminded of Larisa's categorization of 'leaks' - which i think is really important:

Strategic Military/Intelligence Leaks: Part of either disinformation campaign or allegiance. This is seen as legal as long as it does not put into peril our own security. An example of this would be those planted stories by military agents (disinformation) or leaks of tactical information to foreign agents we may be using in the field, an example may be MEK (allegiance).

Industrial Military/Intelligence Leaks - 'Enabled': this is what I describe as a leak that happens from the contractors end, with the blessing and/or support of certain people in the military/DOD structure for their own interests, but is in fact illegal and does in fact compromise our national security. An example of this would be what Sibel uncovered.

Industrial Military/Intelligence Leaks - 'Solo': same as above, but done without the approval/blessing of any insider. Stealing secrets from military/DOD to essentially make money. A good example of this is the codes Chalabi got a hold of and sold to Iran.

Nationalistic/Ideological Military/Intelligence Leaks: This would be where an agent of another country infiltrates our own military/intelligence infrastructure. A spy essentially or mole. Larry Franklin case might fall here, as he was not acting as a mercenary.

Political Military/Intelligence Leaks: Leaks that are politically motivated, that is not to say that there cannot be multiple reasons, such as "enabled" but the public best knows these cases as 'political hits' - the outing of Valerie Plame is the best example.

Obviously the scenario miguel outlines above clouds the issue a little bit/lot - larisa's leaks only consider the motivation of the leaker, not the (ultimate) motivation of the leakee, or the (unintended) leakage of the leak. (i think i just used 5 versions of the same word in one sentence - is that a record?)

i once tried to build a model of leaks and leakees and whatnot (i didnt publish it) - it might be interesting to revisit that...

the da vinci coda

this via damien

...Tungston soon joins forces with a gifted French proctologist, Soapy Newlo, and learns that the late fat white guy was involved in the Priory of Neocons—an actual secret society whose members now control the White House. The fat dad guy (also known as the Late flatulent git) has sacrificed his life to protect the Priory's most sacred secrets: the former association with (and nurturing of) OBL, the prior knowledge of the nonexistence of WMDs in Iraq and the no 'real' impending threat due to the nuclear enrichment in Iran.

In a hopeless race through Kabul, Baghdad, and beyond, Tungston and Newlo match wits, scratch heads and brush elbows with the faceless powerbrokers who appear to work for Opus Dim—a clandestine, sect of Washington Lobbyists who represent the global elitists who have long tried to seize the Priory's secrets in order to safeguard its secrecy . The Opus believes that the Priory is turning out be a bunch of clueless fascists who can't seem to plug the endless leaks on their massive screw ups all around the world, (including the ones in their pants).. Unless Tungston and Newlo can figure out the truth amongst the labyrinth of planned mainstream news propaganda, the Priory's secrets—and a stunning historical truth (about 9-11)—will remain hidden forever....

State = Innocent, Neocons & OVP = Bad

* when clemons ran the story that armitage is in Fitz' 'bulls-eye', i wrote:

This story will drive everyone mad - because everyone is trying to fit the facts around two dodgy theses:
a) that there is a strong dividing line between the eurofag lefties at State and the neocons / OVP
b) that Plame was outed to GetWilson

Re the first point, expanding it out a bit for clarification, not only do i see a fuzzy line between State and OVP et al, but also that what is known as "State" is anything but a monolithic whole (even once you strip out Bolton et al). I have a lot of trouble with analyses that assume these battles are Dept vs Dept - i've tussled with emptywheel about this before - see here or here

example quotes:

"emptywheel.... 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'."

and

" i think the purported 'realist vs neocon' battle is largely overblown. similarly, i think the 'State=Realist' meme can also be very misleading."

the other side of the same coin is that Left Blogistan basically assumes State = Good, Innocent in L'Affaire Plame, and that Neocons & OVP = Bad. this is also wrong, and misleading at best. (similarly, one of the other memes that drives me crazy is 'loyalty' - armitage is always 'fiercely loyal', for example. so is Preznit Blinky)

In any case, over at EW's place, Jeff has been making the case today (start here and read down for his comments) that there actually was a lotta daylight within what is presumed to be 'State' (Wilson, Powell, Armitage, Scowcroft, Grossman etc). Jeff:

"I was led to reread Kristof's original 5-6-03 column. If you haven't read it in a while, I highly recommend it, in light of what we've learned recently, and especially because it strongly supports my claim that Team Powell had reason to feel hostile toward Wilson, and that that might help explain Armitage's leaks. In fact, not only is the top of the State Department much more a focus than OVP, Powell and State are criticized as much if not more than President Bush for ignoring the doubts about the Niger intelligence in the runup to the war. OVP plays a rather minor role here, especially as compared with the role it would play subsequently."

And Jeff is correct - read kristoff. (Jeff does make the same mistake however, by presuming that Wilson & Grossman are on the same team).

I'm sure there is a faction vs faction fight going on here with plamegate - but i really dont think we have a clue what is really going on - and i'm pretty sure that much of the confusion is based on the fact that people on both sides don't even know who the factions are, or what the motivations are.

as i wrote last week:

"i also don't think leftblogistan is right about their take on the story (which seems remarkably narrow). remarkably, despite their record, i even suspect that some elements of rightblogistan might not be entirely wrong about their interpretation (although i have no clues as to which parts might be accurate). I'm also pretty sure that our particular version of the story is incomplete too. i wonder if we'll ever know."

let's hope fitz has been able to sort it all out (he's about the only person in this whole mess who i presume to be clean)

update: edited for clarification as per EW's observations in the comments

sunday is postsecret day

George Bush: War President Criminal

Scheuer: Osama trying to get nukes

* scheuer:

"The second thing we desperately need is an accelerated program to control the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. We know that bin Laden has been using hired scientists and engineers to acquire these weapons since 1992. He has now had 14 years to try and do that. And I recently read that the program to control the Soviet nuclear arsenal is well less than half complete. To me, the two touchstones of American security are controlling the borders and securing all of the Soviet nuclear weapons. If you don’t do those [things], the intelligence community can help you overseas, but the domestic target is wide open."

* wapo:

"Prime Minister Tony Blair caved in to White House pressure by sharpening language on Iran and softening it on global warming in a speech he delivered Friday at Georgetown University... Blair made "significant" last-minute changes to his major foreign policy address and that "objections by President George W. Bush's inner circle played a key role in the alterations.""

* driftglass:

"Because to follow the arc of the murderous lie at the heart of this Administration’s policy –- 1) Everyone who takes up arms against Americans is a terrorist. Even if we’re in their country. Even if they have lived there for 30 generations. 2) The rules of war and civility don’t apply to terrorists, and 3) There are no distinctions between combatants and civilians -- means there is no reason whatsoever why one shouldn’t lob a few grenades into a class full of nine-year-olds, or shoot old women...

Who but a Persistent Vegetative Senator could possibly still believe -- at this late date, after three, blood-soaked years -- that any Party that piles up facts, dissent, logic, history, science and the rule of law into a heap, slathers it with napalm, and then spends five years flicking lit cigarettes at the pyre...didn’t really want a conflagration..."

cheney hearts presidential power

* Boston Globe:

"The office of Vice President Dick Cheney routinely reviews pieces of legislation before they reach the president's desk, searching for provisions that Cheney believes would infringe on presidential power, according to former White House and Justice Department officials.

The officials said Cheney's legal adviser and chief of staff, David Addington , is the Bush a dministration's leading architect of the ``signing statements" the president has appended to more than 750 laws. The statements assert the president's right to ignore the laws because they conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution."

* THE SDUT has a longish article about the hooker-gate poker games - including this snippet:

" During Wilkes' stays at the Watergate, Monica Lewinsky, a key figure in the impeachment of President Clinton, lived there in a suite her family rented."

i wonder if she got invited. (must.resist.cigar.comment.)

* last week i wrote " how long till duncan hunter gets seriously dragged into these investigations?" newsweek has a new wilkes et al article and takes us half a step closer:

" the Feds are also reviewing Wilkes's ties to other powerful House leaders. Former GOP majority leader Tom DeLay, Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter and Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis all reportedly had dealings with Wilkes."

SIbel: Counter-intelligence

Yesterday I asked what Sibel means when she separates the Counter-intelligence from Counter-terrorism. Here's what she says:

"The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations."

Miguel in the comments offers this as an answer:

As for your Counterintelligence comment, I think Sibel is pointing to the Turkish counterintelligence investigation begun in 1997 to monitor the activities of the ATC/ATAA/ATA.

The initial purpose of the investigation would have been to find out what the Turks were up to in terms of stealing US intelligence secrets and corrupting elected officials. Then, lo and behold, some of the wiretaps show the Turks were also laundering funds, moving drugs and selling arms for certain Saudis, including a fellow named Bin Laden. When the FBI agents attempted to turn this information over to Counterterrorism, in walks the State Dept's Marc Grossman. "sorry folks, Turkey is a key strategic ally. You can't investigate this further"

I think Grossman was the point man to keep the FBI off the Turks back. But that's just my educated guess.

oh - i get it now. thnx miguel. interesting. more later.

ranting about sibel edmonds, again

I stumbled across this collection of Sibel links - and it led me to this piece in the Baltimore Chronicle by Jim Hogue in Dec 04.

It is fair to say that the Bush administration, through the efforts of Attorney General John Ashcroft, has confirmed its complicity in the 9/11/01 attacks.

In his legal appeal to Judge Reggie Walton to silence FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, Ashcroft has inadvertently, through the very language of the appeal, provided eloquent proof of treason and misprision of treason within the highest levels of government.

Their refusal to release the report of the Inspector General, and their original gag order to “block discovery in a lawsuit of any information that, if disclosed, would adversely affect national security” raises obvious questions
[]
In Ms. Edmonds' unimpeachable testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee almost three years ago, she named countries and people who had contributed to the attacks of 9/11.
[]
What Ashcroft has done is to admit that those who have read the reports (Ashcroft himself plus the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee including Senators Grassley and Leahy) know the identities of the countries and persons who are responsible for the attacks. And he has confirmed that those responsible must be protected.
[]
It is most significant, legally, that Senators Grassley and Leahy have repeatedly demanded that Ashcroft release the Inspector General’s report. Note, they “fear that the designation of information as classified in this case serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability.” Senators Grassley and Leahy are telling you WHY it is classified.
[]
The Inspector General's report contains confirmed evidence of intentional, not accidental, criminality. The validity of the evidence has been confirmed by Senators Grassley and Leahy, and by the FBI. It has also been confirmed by Ashcroft. In his appeal to Judge Walton he stated, “. . . statements in this declaration are based on [his] personal knowledge,”--knowledge that “military secrets are at stake”...
[]
In the documents are names like Atta, Ahmad, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Dostum, Khalilzad, and Bin Laden; and groups like Al Qaeda, the ISI of Pakistan, and the Taliban. The names of companies like Enron, Halliburton, Bechtel, Unocal, and Bin Laden Group appear connected to the off-shore banks that hide money for three infamous families: Marcos, Bush, and Bin Laden. And the same names, like Bush, Cheney, Rice, Bin Laden, Zelikow, Woolsey, and Giffen, intersect in the perpetration of unspeakable atrocities in the quest of empire and power.

Man, wouldn't I love to see Sibel's testimony, and the IG report.

I'm not sure how much Hogue knows (he interviewed sibel here), but interestingly, Sibel pointed to Giraldi's piece as the best version in print about her story, and yet it doesn't even mention 911.

Incidentally, in the interview with Hogue is this:

"SE: On the other hand I have seen several, several top targets for these investigations of these terrorist activities that were allowed to leave the country--I'm not talking about weeks, I'm talking about months after 9/11"

I've previously had interest in this comment (can't find it now) - I wonder who she's talking about. The 'not weeks, months' observation is presumably to direct attention away from the bin ladin family flights immediately after 911. We know that Maj. Doug Dickerson left the country in about August, 2002 - are the Dickersons two of the people she is talking about? (note that she says 'several' - which is presumably more than two)

The (scrubbed) VF article says:

" By August (Sibel's lawyer) was ready to depose Douglas Can Dickerson. But before their scheduled deposition, the couple abruptly left the country. Douglas had been assigned to an air-force job in Belgium. Virgil Magee, a U.S. Air Force spokesman in Belgium, confirms that Dickerson remains on active duty in Europe, but refuses to say exactly where. "

Sibel calls the abscondees "top targets for these (911) investigations" - was Doug Dickerson ever a top target? I'd never presumed as much - although it is apparent he was on the take from the ATC gang, and/or Turkey proper - but AFAIK, he wasn't sufficiently senior to say, be involved in the NORAD stand-down (he was an ex military attaché in Ankara, involved in weapons procurement). So my guess is that sibel is talking about 'several' other than the dickersons - so who is it? And how would sibel know that they were 'top targets'?

The dickersons were apparently covering for people in the turkish embassy who were FBI targets. are these the people that sibel is pointing to? it's more than possible that she overheard some of their conversations. which of them left the US months after 911? and how on earth could Turkish embassy staff be 'top targets' of the 911 investigation?

This is also an interesting exchange:

JH: Are you allowed to say that it's the Saudis?

SE: I cannot name any country. And I would emphasize that it's plural. I understand the Saudis have been named because fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

It's difficult to read that in any way other than 'yep, it includes the saudis' - something that i havent really noticed (from her) before.

and this:

SE: However, the names of people from other countries, and semi-legit organizations from other countries, to this day, have not been made public.

JH: And the information that you have been gagged on has to do with that specifically.

SE: Correct. And specifically with that and their ties to people here in this country today.

I don't have a good timeline in my head about when she started discussing different elements (I should probably do that). I suspect that she's talking about the Turkish/ATC stuff here.

and this:

SE: But I can tell you that the issue, on one side, boils down to money--a lot of money. And it boils down to people and their connections with this money, and that's the portion that, even with (Griffin's) book, has not been mentioned to this day. Because then it starts touching some people in high places.

The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.

You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points - and they [the intelligence community] are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing "foreign relations" which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels.

I've been meaning to try to untangle this part of Sibel's story forever - because I haven't really got my head around it (she mentions it in a number of places). What is she pointing to when she says 'it's not counter-terrorism, it's counter-intelligence'? What does counter-intelligence cover? Presumably counter-terrorism is strictly that - with a capital T. We know that she often talks about 'arms and drugs' - and presumably the arms component includes both state and non-state (aka Terrorism) arms. So does CI include drug trafficking? Is that the point that she's making?

I'm always a little bit at a loss to understand where the balance is between drugs and arms when it comes to these people. I presume that the routes are similar - so i can understand that the same people are involved, and i understand that the goal ($) is the same - which is why it eventually leads to a money-laundering nexus. And we know that she gets exasperated about the money-laundering aspect - particularly that there is massive laundering going on through banks in places like Malta, Cyprus, and Dubai.

and then there's this:

"JH: Let me read you a short quote from Dr. Griffin's book, quoting from War and Globalization: The Truth Behind September 11 by Michel Chossudovsky and ask you to comment on it. "...The transfer of money to Atta [$325,000], in conjunction with the presence of the ISI chief in Washington during the week, [is] the missing link behind 9/11....The evidence confirms that al-Qaeda is supported by Pakistan's ISI (and it is amply documented that) the ISI owes its existence to the CIA."

SE: I cannot comment on that. But I can tell that once, and if, and when this issue gets to be, under real terms, investigated, you will be seeing certain people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally.

note that sibel's 'I cannot comment on that' is directly followed by a comment.

here's what she told me:

"You seem to know how to connect some of these dots; do so pretty well. Yet, even some of the savvy media here don't get it (or don't want to!). You picked the Zogby report, even though it was written a while ago (good research); cleverly put it together with Mahmud, Grossman, and even Brewster Jennings."

and then this:

"JH: Here's a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?

SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization... Then things start getting a lot of overlap-- money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That's what I'm trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it's getting into somebody's political campaign, and somebody's lobbying. And people don't want to be traced back to this money."

that's an interesting way to answer the question: "What is al-Qaeda? "

and this:

"JH: Do you believe that 9/11 could have been stopped if information like yours had been properly handled?

SE: At the very least, as early as May/June 2001, we could have issued a red code alert to the public, and we would have issued this very urgent warning system, which would, in return, have increased our Airport and INS security."

note that sibel is stepping back in time a bit here (she didnt start at the fbi till september, although she translated stuff from before then) - although she is quite specific about the timing. also note that this question comes after a question about Behrooz Sarshar - who was apparently the source of the 'blueprints' story, which arrived in July/August 2001. But there is also another story:

"SE: One of them had to do with certain informants in April 2001. This informant provided very specific information about the attacks."

again - it's not clear whether she had first hand evidence of this particular strain of intel.

and this:

"JH: ... And if one of the investigations from Phoenix, Chicago, New York, or Minneapolis had been followed through, let alone all four, it would have burst the bubble.

SE: Look, Jim, they had those four pieces you mentioned, and far more than that, believe me, far more than that. And that has not been made public. And for them to say that we did not have any specific information is just outrageous. Because what were they waiting for? An affidavit signed by bin Laden?"

and this:

SE: The only people I have seen who have been truly pushing for the truth are the family members. All they have asked for are three things. They want the truth, the facts, the real facts, the straightforward truth. They want accountability. And they want us to improve our security. That's it. They have no other agenda. And now they're smearing their names.

Arkin (from friday):

I always interpreted the White House's selection of Kerik as a need and a desire to neutralize the 9/11 families.... By appointing Kerik, I thought the President was specifically someone who could represent a sanctioned view of 9/11. Kerik would turn the citizen's movement into just another constituency, a special interest that needed to be dealt with but one marginalized rather than revered.

Hey arkin, fuck you.

So that's Sibel about 911 - and yet she points to the Giraldi article as the most accurate article about her story, and he doesn't even mention 911 (or hastert). (see here for another sibel / 911-related interview)

Now let's revisit what she told me in January:

""You seem to know how to connect some of these dots; do so pretty well. Yet, even some of the savvy media here don't get it (or don't want to!). You picked the Zogby report, even though it was written a while ago (good research); cleverly put it together with Mahmud, Grossman, and even Brewster Jennings.

Working around the gag orders, I tried to put bits & pieces, making sure each could be pointed out to as public info; almost everyone either missed it entirely, or, wandered off on a totally irrelevant road. You took each piece, and with a good research job, started connecting the dots. Now that I've discovered your site, I can send people (reporters) to your site. That's why I want to know a bit more about you, and how you ended up on the right track.

Here is another dot for you:
1. Judge Walton, my original judge (on State Secret Privilege) happened to be 'randomly' appointed to Libby/Plame case. More on Walton later (how he ended up with my case...).

2. Joe Wilson met his wife, Plame, at ATC (American Turkish Council) in 1997. Look up his book, it is there.

3. Brewster Jennings, Plame, dealt with ATC, ATA, and Turkey a lot. Her (undercover) job took her to Turkey more than 4-5 times to Turkey between 1997 & 2001. This info has been printed on the front-page of main Turkish papers.

IAI, International Advisors Inc, owned & operated by Perle & Feith, was set up & registered as 'Agents for Turkey.'

note again, no mention of 911, and she also highlighted that "almost everyone wandered off on a totally irrelevant road" - i presume the 'irrelevant road' she is referring to is the 911 stuff, which is kinda difficult to reconcile - given that she talks about it a lot.

Here's Larisa:

"Again, I think (sibel is) pointing to something and everyone thinks she has the Holy Grail to 911 and she doesn't. She just has certain transactions that may or may not be related - there's just no way to tell. She knows this herself - she knows she can't really clarify - but people are getting a misunderstanding that she somehow holds the grail to 911 and that's not the case. She has pieces that could, if put together in a particular context, and thoroughly verified, could possibly be of import as evidence of certain other people being involved. But this doesn't even in any way implicate any American government officials. It still implicates foreign assets - so again, it's not what people think it is."

Ok - now for my dirty little secret: I don't specifically know how Feith and Perle are involved - other than they are selling stuff and making money, and killing lots of people in the interim.

Here's what i do know:
1. "i think that sibel came to my site by googling ""international advisors inc" and Feith"" (link)
2. she said to me: "You picked the Zogby report" (which mentions the dodgy feith/perle / IAI / israel /turkey relationship)
3. the short giraldi article that sibel loves says: "Doug Feith's International Advisors Inc, a registered agent for Turkey in 1989 - 1994, netted $600,000 per year from Turkey, with Richard Perle taking $48,000 annually as a consultant."

can you see a pattern? It seems obvious that she is pointing to those two 'folks', and IAI particularly, but i dont particularly know exactly what is going on

anyway - lot's there to chew over. i dont really have a point for my post - but it's always interesting going back over old interviews and whatnot and looking at them in the context of what we know now.

(not to mention, i havent ranted about sibel for ages!)

Gore: loose, funny, and smart

* RudePundit:

"Last night, Gore was as you've heard, loose, funny, and smart. Goddamn, so fuckin' smart. Every time he opened his mouth to discuss some aspect of melting ice caps or fuel efficiency, you just wanted to weep, thinking, "Jesus Christ, he won. Motherfucker won. He should be our president right now, not that inarticulate, shit-tossing baboon hunched in the ditch next to Tony Blair right now." What Gore does better than anyone in the Democratic Party right now, from Hillary Clinton to Russ Feingold, is articulate liberal issues as moral callings. Not squishy, feel-good sentiments, but deep in the soul, religious, even, moral purposes. Like, you know, Christians are supposed to do.

Essentially, Gore's mission on global warming is rhetorically similar to George Bush's mission in Iraq: revolution now so that the future can be secure. The difference, of course, is that Gore isn't a liar, and he doesn't have to hype the evidence. Gore approaches his subject the way every politician ought to lead: he knows he's right, and he's so right that others are wrong. When Gore was asked about scientists who say that climatic change is just part of ongoing natural cycles, Gore didn't pander, didn't offer that idiotic "well, good people can have differences of opinion" bullshit the Bush administration uses to paper over their lies. No, Gore just said that the questioner was wrong. That the vast scientific consensus says global warming is real and happening. And to believe otherwise is to believe liars. He said scientists who say otherwise are industrial "prostitutes" and "camp followers" (he hesitated before saying that - you knew he wanted to say "whores" or "skanky, disease-ridden bitches")."

* according to the ForeignPolicy blog, Loser of the week #5:

"Condoleezza Rice: Number Two Robert Zoellick is the department's best diplomat. Losing him is a near-death blow."

* driftglass:

"No one is on the side of child molesters, but every red flag in the Universe should be firing off when that notorious Serial Constitution Molester, Abu Gonzales, tries to use that issue to further increase his junta’s massive power grab and daily assertions of myriad New and Exciting Imperial exceptions to the rule of law for this Administration.
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Terrorist and child molester are despicable creatures, but how much worse are those that cower behind such monsters? That use them as cover to snipe our basic, God-given rights as Americans into confetti?

In five short years, these criminals and have done far, far more long term damage to this nation than any bomber or pedophile ever did or could, and they have done it to the cheers of their swine hordes."

* part 2 of emptywheel's plame-gate piece is up - detailing the events of leak-week. so you can bone up and show-off to your friends. it's long comprehensive.

photograph of the year

Sean Smith’s photograph of detainees being taken for questioning by US troops in Iraq has been named photograph of the year. It was one of 157 pictures selected from over 6,000 entries to make up the current exhibition. Photo: Sean Smith / The Guardian

Jose Padilla: Terrorist (Honest!)

ABCNews:

Federal investigators say they have evidence that former Chicago street gang member Jose Padilla was a higher ranking member of Al Qaeda than first thought... now U.S. prosecutors believe Padilla was operating at a much higher level than just an advance man for Al Qaeda.
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Federal authorities say evidence now shows that Padilla had had risen in Al Qaeda's ranks to have personal relationships with the top planners of the September 11th attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.
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But authorities say Padilla's connection to the upper crust of Al Qaeda is best found in his activities with three of the organization's top terrorists. The night before leaving for Chicago they threw him a bon voyage dinner -- hosted by the men considered to be the 9/11 masterminds.

arghhhh. these people drive me insane.

remember when they found his al'qaeda application form? That was perhaps the finest moment these clowns have ever given us.

JesusGeneral was able to get his hands on a copy of that document, thank goodness.