5 March 2005: More on Sibel Edmonds and Turkey

One of the things that has caught my attention recently is that — coincidentally? — Sibel Edmonds' 9/11-related case has been picking up a lot of attention at the same time that two other potentially related furors are also apparently escalating. These are the increasing troubles between US and Turkey, marked by a new and aggressive neocon propaganda bombardment, and the internecine struggle reportedly raging in the Bush administration and the US establishment.

I made some previous comments on related issues in my January 29, January 31, and February 4 entries. Also, I have updated my page of skeptical views on Daniel Ellsberg and his involvement with Edmonds, which can be found here:
http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/ellsberg.html

Last week, J¯rgen Gottschlich surveyed the seriously deteriorating US-Turkey relationship in an Reuters article entitled, "A Marriage Gone Sour":

[US President George W. Bush worked to improve US-Europe relations this week, but meanwhile, America's once-strong partnership with Turkey continues to erode. The Turkish population is more anti-American than ever and the Kurdish question in Iraq threatens to lead to an open break.

ÝÝÝÝThe piece could not have been more provocative. Just the headline of the article by Senior Editor Robert L. Pollack published last week in the Wall Street Journal was enough to make Turkey's blood boil: "The Sick Man of Europe -- Again." The article then went on to detail the collapse of the once-close relationship between the United States and Turkey.

ÝÝÝÝThe headline was chosen deliberately -- a play on the label given to the pre-World War I Ottoman Empire as it slid toward collapse. Pollack's point: Old leftist dogmatism and a new tendency toward Islamism have erupted into an intense anti-Americanism that may even exceed the amount of hate for America seen in Arab countries. "Most of the heritage of Ataturk (the liberal-minded founder of modern Turkey) is at risk of being lost," Pollack wrote. Turkey is becoming narrow-minded and paranoiac and "it has no friendship for the US and is not accepted by the European Union (EU)."]
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022805F.shtml

Pollack's article is here:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006299

A recent article by AEI scholar and leading neocon Michael Rubin plays up Saudi connections:

Green Money, Islamist Politics in Turkey
http://www.meforum.org/article/684

William Lind on the new novel, Metal Storm, making waves in Turkey:

[The Feb. 15 Christian Science Monitor describes a situation that, to anyone familiar with American-Turkish relations in the post-World War II period, is almost beyond imagining: an American attack on Turkey. According to the Monitor's story,

"The year is 2007. After a clash with Turkish forces in northern Iraq, U.S. troops stage a surprise attack. Reeling, Turkey turns to Russia and the European Union, who turn back the American onslaught.

"This is the plot of Metal Storm, one of the fastest-selling books in Turkish history. The book is clearly sold as fiction, but its premise has entered Turkey's public discourse in a way that sometimes seems to blur the line between fantasy and reality.

"'The Foreign Ministry and General Staff are reading it keenly,' Murat Yetkin, a columnist for the Turkish daily newspaper Radikal, recently wrote. 'All cabinet members also have it.'"]
http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=5021

It's worth taking note of another article by Rubin in which he very frankly offers his perspective on the current internecine battles in the US establishment, in which his declared enemies (he stops just a hair short of accusations of treason) are "the rank-and-file of not only the CIA, but also of the State Department and even many in the Pentagon, are hostile to the president's Middle East policies."

Bush Marches Into a Second Term, His Agenda Set by Mideast Foes
by Michael Rubin
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/11482

In an interview, Sibel Edmonds has stated that the agencies which would be most damaged by her information would be the DOJ, FBI, and State Department. Concerning the latter, it is obvious that the way her case plays out could have an impact in the current power struggles. I'm not saying that this is basis in itself to suspect her of collaborating in any schemeing, nor that the disclosure of her information would not be a good thing. She may be completely sincere in her efforts, but it would be naieve to ignore the wider implications here, and I think that promoters of Edmond's cause had better make sure they have considered them fully.

For instance, some may like to imagine that "the establishment" has closed ranks and unified to protect the FBI from scrutiny. However, that illusion is dispelled upon reading some relatively remarks from James Woolsey, also from the neocon faction, on the intel reorganization under the new Director of National Intelligence:

[Managing along this foreign-domestic fault line will be the principal, and hardest, job of the new DNI. The bureaucratic and policy clashes that will define the new director's effectiveness will not be those on which the press, the 9/11 Commission and the Congress have been focused for months -- rivalry with the Secretary of Defense. The defense secretary and the director of Central Intelligence have generally worked well together over the years and that will probably continue with the new DNI. Military management of some parts of the intelligence community and military use of intelligence will likely continue in its reasonably well-grooved and effective path. and that's fine. The Defense Department wasn't the pre-9/11 problem anyway.

But what if the new DNI says to the FBI: "We're in a war with radical Islamist fanatics and our foreign intelligence collection increasingly tells us that a number of individuals from the Saudi Wahhabi sect are a major threat here in the U.S. -- for example, Wahhabi clerics have penetrated our prisons as chaplains and recruited a number of potential terrorists. So why are you largely ignoring this sort of infiltration and focusing so much of your domestic counter-intelligence assets on Israel?" Will the FBI tell the DNI to get lost? Stay tuned.]
GET SMART by R. James Woolsey, Wall Street Journal December 15, 2004
http://www.benadorassociates.com/article/10077

So, it looks like a little opportunistic pressure on the FBI is not at all unwelcome in neocon central...

I also find reasons for skepticism about this case in the fact that the heat is being raised on the FBI at the same time that the FBI's very long running investigations into AIPAC and the neocons are themselves heating up. At least, that is what David Corn is reporting:

Is the Potential AIPAC/Neocon Scandal About to "Blow Up"? March 03, 2005
http://www.davidcorn.com/2005/03/is_the_potentia.php

I suspect, tentatively, that David Corn is doing a favor for his old CIA pals and may be on that side of the battle, which seems to be being fought via scandals and mutual blackmail. Meanwhile, not only the Turkish government, but a huge number of people and agencies in the US establishment, could be under tremendous pressure with this threat of a big disclosure of sordid secrets about the US-Turkey past relationship.

I'm not the one to make any solid judgements on this stuff, and of course it's risky to make assumptions about who may be supporting whom, or who is being used by whom. All I can say is, it's always a big mistake to get suckered into taking sides in a gang war. I fear that there are going to be serious continuing efforts to manipulate 9/11 activists into publicizing certain issues or spin that may benefit one faction or the other. At the moment, I think it is somewhat more likely at this juncture that the neocon type of agenda will benefit from manipulations of 9/11 activism in the near future, because of the current profusion of spin like "the Saudis did it via Ptech", or "Islamofascists secretly run the world and their US sympathizers let 9/11 happen" and so on. More on this later...