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Title: Sibel Edmonds' case and the heroin connection
Source:
Daily Kos
URL Source: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/13/174055/265
Published: Aug 13, 2007
Author: Lukery
Post Date: 2007-08-13 18:04:21 by Zipporah
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Keywords: None
Views: 197
Comments: 17
Sibel Edmonds' case and the heroin connection Everyone is talking about "How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad" in yesterday's NYT - but what stands out for me is that in a 7-page article on Afghanistan, there's not one mention of heroin, opium, or even poppies. As a companion piece to the NYT article about losing the 'good war,' I strongly suggest that you read this recent article by former UK Ambassador to Uzebekistan, Craig Murray from late last month. Murray explains that Afghanistan is run by drug lords. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds often points to the fact that whenever the media does mention the heroin industry, they almost never go beyond reporting about the poor farmers in the Afghan poppy fields. Sibel asks the leading question: "Who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?" Before I proceed, let's start with a little background into Sibel's case. When Sibel worked as a translator for the FBI, one of the main cases she was working on was a counter-intelligence operation against Turkey's equivalent of AIPAC, the American Turkish Council (ATC). On the Turkish side, the ATC is (largely) represented by Turkey's "Deep State – the politicians, military officers and intelligence officials who worked with drug bosses to move drugs from Afghanistan..." (On the American side, the ATC is represented by the 'Defense' contractors, and Turkey's American lobbyists - people like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, former House Speaker Bob Livingston, former Defense Secretary William Cohen, former Minority Leader Dick Gephardt and others.) Now, we've all heard the statistics that Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the world's opium etc - but what many people don't know is that most of that opium is imported into Turkey where it is transformed, on an industrial scale, into heroin. It is warehoused on an industrial scale, repackaged and marketed on an industrial scale, and re-exported on an industrial scale. As Sibel says: "This multi billion-dollar industry requires highly sophisticated networks and people. So, who are the real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields? In other words, the folks who supply much of the world's heroin break bread (and share lots of dough) with their American counterparts at places like the American Turkish Council. Sibel says that there are at least four people in Congress that she knows of who are being bribed by the Turkish gang, and according to Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes, they also have "spies... inside the US State Department and at the Pentagon." In Craig Murray's article, he notes all of the impressive statistics regarding Afghanistan's opium production - 2006 beat the previous record by 60%, and this year promises to be stronger still - and then he makes two important points. Firstly, he says that all of the 'value-add' activity that was previously performed in Turkey (turning poppies into heroin) is now conducted within Afghanistan. We don't know whether this is a massive shift in the underlying structure of the industry, or whether the incumbent gangs that Sibel refers to have simply decided to 'off-shore' their production from Turkey to Afghanistan. I suspect that it is the latter, simply because we haven't seen the type of blood-bath that we would expect to see if there was a serious turf-war taking place. From Murray's piece: " According to the United Nations, 2006 was the biggest opium harvest in history, smashing the previous record by 60 per cent. This year will be even bigger. Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations. It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops. (FTR, I have seen no evidence for Murray's claim that Afghanistan is now primarily exporting heroin rather than opium) The second point that Murray makes is that this activity takes place with the the active participation of the authorities, just as Sibel said was the case in Turkey. Murray: How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect. When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons – especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance – to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers. President Karzai is a good man. He has never had an opponent killed, which may not sound like much but is highly unusual in this region and possibly unique in an Afghan leader. But nobody really believes he is running the country. He asked America to stop its recent bombing campaign in the south because it was leading to an increase in support for the Taliban. The United States simply ignored him. Above all, he has no control at all over the warlords among his ministers and governors, each of whom runs his own kingdom and whose primary concern is self-enrichment through heroin. More Murray: He became concerned at the vast amounts of heroin coming from Afghanistan, in particular from the fiefdom of the (now) Head of the Afghan armed forces, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in north and east Afghanistan. Dostum is an Uzbek, and the heroin passes over the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, where it is taken over by President Islam Karimov's people... The heroin Jeeps run from General Dostum to President Karimov. The UK, United States and Germany have all invested large sums in donating the most sophisticated detection and screening equipment to the Uzbek customs centre at Termez to stop the heroin coming through. But the convoys of Jeeps running between Dostum and Karimov are simply waved around the side of the facility. More Murray: "In Afghanistan, General Dostum (Head of the Afghan armed forces)is vital to Karzai's coalition, and to the West's pretence of a stable, democratic government. Opium is produced all over Afghanistan, but especially in the north and north-east – Dostum's territory. Again, our Government's spin doctors have tried hard to obscure this fact and make out that the bulk of the heroin is produced in the tiny areas of the south under Taliban control. But these are the most desolate, infertile rocky areas. It is a physical impossibility to produce the bulk of the vast opium harvest there. That General Dostum is head of the Afghan armed forces and Deputy Minister of Defence is in itself a symbol of the bankruptcy of our policy. " None of this information was included in the NYT's 7 page article on how we 'lost' Afghanistan. In fact, in a fantastic recent interview, Sibel wonders aloud whether the media silence is intentional: "Who prevents the media, or is it happening, from publishing the real facts? The Turks, their involvement, UAE and their position in laundering this money, Pakistan and narcotics. It's saying "Oops! They are our 'allies' and we don't want to touch them. We don't want to turn them off." In fact, we have a lot of business, "sensitive diplomatic relations", as John Ashcroft put it." As if to prove Sibel's point, just last week, ABC's blog The Blotter reported: Heroin Found in Car Allegedly Owned by Top Afghan Border Official A manhunt is on in Afghanistan for the man President Hamid Karzai wanted to name head of his country's border police, ABC News has learned, following the discovery that the official owned a car filled with heroin intercepted by members of the Kabul City Criminal Investigations Division. U.S. authorities confirmed the seizure of 130 kilograms of heroin in June in a car that allegedly belonged to Haji Zahir Qadir, the former chief of the border police for northern Takhar province. Haji Zahir was not in the car when it was intercepted. His cousin and "right hand," Bilal, was present and arrested. Afghan officials say Karzai wanted to name Haji Zahir to head the border police, but a U.S. military intelligence assessment obtained by ABC News in 2006 named Zahir as a drug smuggler. News of the seizure and the manhunt came at a most embarrassing time for Karzai, who was at Camp David with President George Bush to meet on regional issues, including the upsurge in violence in Afghanistan and cross-border issues with Pakistan. The information fed to The Blotter was apparently designed to cause some embarrassment (coming 6 weeks after the event), but it wasn't very embrassing at all. As best as I could tell, ABC's blog entry was the only mention of this story at all, anywhere (1,2,3). For more on my coverage of the heroin angle of Sibel's case, see Sibel Edmonds: America's Watergate, Sibel Edmonds & the Neocons' Turkish Gravy-Train, and Daniel Ellsberg: Hastert got suitcases of Al Qaeda heroin cash, should be in jail. I'll give Craig Murray the final word: "Remember this article next time you hear a politician calling for more troops to go into Afghanistan. And when you hear of another brave British life wasted there, remember you can add to the casualty figures all the young lives ruined, made miserable or ended by heroin in the UK. They, too, are casualties of our Afghan policy." Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
by lukery [Subscribe]
Mon Aug 13, 2007 at 02:40:55 PM PDT
[snip]
These operations are run by mafia groups closely controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military. According to statistics compiled in 1998, Turkey’s heroin trafficking brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996. That amount makes up nearly a quarter of Turkey’s GDP. Only criminal networks working in close cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking on such a scale. The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics activities and networks.
Call Embarrass Waxman. Demand public open hearings:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 651-1040
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498
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#3. To: Zipporah (#0)
I see the whole interview with Sibel is transcribed here
(Sibel Edmonds) My case has been known to a certain degree because of the activities that I have been engaging in, in terms of going to courts, going to Congress, etc. There are similar cases we are not hearing about. For example, the Larry Franklin case, with the espionage case that they pursued with AIPAC. And what the American public doesn’t know is the fact that there were other counter-intelligence operations within the FBI that obtained far more information not only limited to Mr. Franklin. Other operations were shut down in 2000 and 2001 because they ended up going to higher levels and involving way too many people. I’m talking about individuals who are breaking the law, misusing the trust and abusing their power, and in some cases I would even say engaging in treason. Again it’s very easy to see what happened with my case. What kind of example is my case presenting to those other people who may want to do the right thing and come forward? They would say it doesn’t make a difference at the end, because I pursued every channel possible. I went as high as I could go with the courts, including the Supreme Court, and as you know, they issued a gag order on me several times and invoked the State Secrets Privilege. I’m prevented from discussing whether or not I’m right. And I went all the way to Congress, I did the right thing. I was not what they call a “leaker” who goes straight to the media and starts divulging classified documents. I went to the appropriate committees, the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, too, by the way, and the House and Senate... I went through the other legitimate channels—the courts, the Inspector General’s Office, which is the executive branch. I tried the media. So I don’t blame those people that get pessimistic and say it doesn’t make a difference, or think they’ll lose their job or possibly go to jail. Many of these people are the breadwinners for their families. They’re conscientious people, but they have put 15-20 years into their careers and think, “Oh, I’m 5 years away from my retirement and I don’t want to damage that.” So you have many reasons why more people aren’t coming forward. They make an example out of you. Because if one case, let’s say my case, would really bring justice and accountability, you would see so many people doing the same thing. And how many times—let’s just look at the past decade—have you seen a legitimate whistleblower from any of these agencies come forward and prevail? I don’t think you can name one case. You’re also looking at all the other channels being culprits, sometimes without even intending. For example, there is a lot of blame to be placed on our mainstream media today. Willingly or not, they have become accomplices by not reporting what they should be reporting, and not investigating what they should be investigating. They have abdicated their responsibilities. And where do we look at when we talk about issues such as accountability investigations? We look at Congress. And they have been a major reason we are not seeing more people coming forward from the FBI, agents that I worked with—solid, patriotic, good Americans, dedicated people. They were as outraged as I was when I was going through these cases and reporting them internally. If one of these committees, be it the Judiciary Committee or the Government Affairs Committee in the House, would set a hearing and call these individuals to testify, these agents would tell the truth under oath. (Sibel) I’m talking about individuals who are breaking the law, misusing the trust and abusing their power, so high level people in our government are breaking the law and engaging in treason and all 3 Branches of Government what the heck is going on ???!!! don't they all realize this is how the ground is prepared for a police state...
(Interviewer) So in your opinion, what is the definition of an agent today in the U.S.? What is his job? An important portion of his work is what we are talking about, things that are actually not being dealt with and that are being covered up. So it seems that agents are “good agents” as long as they’re dealing with the enemy. But this enemy is decided by people who are often corrupt and even committing treason… (Sibel Edmonds) I can’t speak for other agents but I can speak for the FBI, and within the FBI you have different types of operations. For example, if they are looking at criminal cases, it is the agent’s job to collect evidence with court warrants, etc., to go after the criminals and bring them to justice. To a certain degree, the same concept holds true for counter-terrorism operations, the one division within the FBI that I consider the most important, but unfortunately the worst run. You have agents and translators and analysts overseeing the activities—sometimes criminal or espionage-related—of foreign entities in our country. Now, if they come across criminal activities and U.S. persons engaged in these what they should be doing and what they are able to do is to take it, report it, go to the Justice Department, go to the courts and start parallel investigations, no longer under counter-intelligence but through criminal or espionage cases. Now, by accident, this happened with this AIPAC case. ... Now the same thing was about to take place with Turkish counter-intelligence in the main portion of the documented—wiretapped or paper—operations that I translated verbatim not only for the Washington Field Office but also for the Chicago and New Jersey offices. They were obtained before 2001. If we were to put a date on it you’re looking at end of 1996 to 2001. Now, in 1998 and 1999, there were so many pieces of evidence of U.S. individuals’ involvement. We’re talking about people with official positions, whether they were in the State Department or the Pentagon or the U.S. Congress. The agents did the right thing again by starting a parallel investigation that targeted individuals who were possibly committing acts of treason. However, as I was told by first-source agents I was working with, this was put on hold in 1999 because President Clinton was then going through the Lewinsky scandal. After the current administration came into power and after I was working there, the agents were told to shut down. The people who made that decision were not the Justice Department or the FBI, and that’s what I try to emphasize all the time—they were pressured, they were forced by higher-up forces within the Pentagon and the State Department. And what was their reasoning behind the scenes? I don’t know, I wasn’t there, but they gave similar explanations and justifications with the courts: “You’re talking about very sensitive diplomatic relations.” And in fact, then-Attorney General Ashcroft said this in his declaration when he invoked the State Secrets Privilege in my case. He said that exposing these issues in courts, whether or not I’m right, would damage certain sensitive diplomatic relations and would hurt certain U.S. foreign business relations. In this case we know one of the countries is Turkey. So you have a U.S. citizen here who has been deprived of her First Amendment rights. Gagged. I mean, is that an American concept, gagging a person? You’re not talking about an enemy combatant, you’re not talking about a terrorist suspect. You’re looking at a tax-payer, a law-abiding American citizen. So these business relations, these diplomatic relations have justified depriving a U.S. citizen of her First Amendment rights, of her Fourth Amendment rights in court. In fact, the U.S. State Department did a retroactive classification illegally and Congress was effectively gagged in May 2004. They’re not even saying what diplomatic relations they refer to. Are they ashamed of it? Are we talking about billions of dollars of weapons procurement? Why don’t they be more specific? Because this is top-secret, classified stuff. That’s why I have been writing these papers, relying on outside sources, getting all the data. You’re looking at $5 billion every two years of weapons procurements? That’s not top-secret. Who benefits from this? What companies? Who are the individuals who are benefiting from this? And is there anything in the issues that I dealt with that if exposed would harm the Americans and their security? None. None whatsoever. In fact, they are issues and they are cases that would help with their national security because the same activities also involve money laundering or certain narcotic activities. All you have to do is look at the State Department’s own reports on Turkey and opium. Ninety-two percent of the heroin supplied in Europe is coming through Turkey, and it’s being marketed and distributed by Turkish individuals. This is not classified. This is within the State Department’s own report. The poppies are being produced in Afghanistan and Taliban-esque people are getting benefits, and Al-Qaeda people are getting the benefits of these poppies being sold to individuals in Turkey who then distribute and provide 92 percent of Europe’s heroin market. Have we said “clamp down on these narcotic activities because it’s helping the terrorists, and the terrorists are threats to our national security?” No, we haven’t. Time Magazine ran a piece about 11 pages long on how the Afghanistan opium production has increased. They also put the value on that opium production. And there were statements from various Congressmen including Walter Jones who went to Afghanistan saying a lot of it goes to support Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The number was somewhere between $38 billion to $50 billion a year. This same article limited the issue of poppy production to some farmers. And you’re looking at these Afghans in shalvars cultivating the poppies there, and you think, these people aren’t capable of managing a $50 billion industry. They only get a small share. Processing the poppies into heroin and then transporting them through the Balkan route is done by Turkish individuals. And you’re not looking at street thugs in Turkey, you’re looking at the Turkish military and the Turkish police. In 2000, a professor in Turkey issued a documented report saying that a quarter of Turkey’s economy relies on heroin production and distribution. Of course, he had to escape the country, go to Germany and ask for political asylum because he committed treason by criticizing the Turkish government. The Time Magazine article didn’t talk about the main actors, the big people, the powerful ones who are distributing, processing, marketing and laundering the proceeds. Those people are not touched. If you look at the report you’ll see the countries involved—Turkey, Cyprus, the UAE. But they were conveniently left out of the Time Magazine article, leaving any American to conclude that the farmers are making $50 billion a year. Again, the culprit is Time Magazine because that is not the case. While the report shows Turkish, UAE and Pakistani involvement, we say they are our allies, we don’t want to touch them, we don’t want to turn them off. In fact, we have lots of good business and sensitive diplomatic relations with them, as Don Ashcroft put it. Now if one of them were part of the axis of evil, if one of them was Syria, if one of them was Iran, if one of them was Korea, if it was Saddam, you would see the stink they would raise—how Saddam’s country and people are helping the Taliban with their finances and helping Al-Qaeda with these cases. But there was this big oops! They’re our very close allies, the ones who we are giving billions of dollars of aid to, the ones who come back and buy our weapons. We can’t mess around with things like that. We have too many powerful people, too many powerful companies that are benefiting from this. There is this huge lobby industry that is benefiting from this. Who is representing the American people? Well we know former chairman Mr. Livingston today is representing these outside interests, therefore our Congress is representing these foreign powers. But who is really representing the American public? And how? It’s very hard to see the track record. And these are the issues that you wish the mainstream media here in this country would cover, and they’re not. It is the nexus between greedy, corrupt, criminal high government officials, Sibel Edmonds is the voice in the wilderness warning us what is going on right now please note this was put in place 1996-2001 during clinton's administration Daily Kos posters (where Lurkey posted this article) blame everything on the big bad Republicans all I can do is pray there are enough citizens in our country who are willing to recognize the problem is bi-partisan we are a country at risk!
(Sibel Edmonds) Are we talking about billions of dollars of weapons procurement? Why don’t they be more specific? Because this is top-secret, classified stuff. That’s why I have been writing these papers, relying on outside sources, getting all the data. You’re looking at $5 billion every two years of weapons procurements? That’s not top-secret. Who benefits from this? What companies? Who are the individuals who are benefiting from this? And is there anything in the issues that I dealt with that if exposed would harm the Americans and their security? In fact, they are issues and they are cases that would help with their national security because the same activities also involve money laundering or certain narcotic activities. All you have to do is look at the State Department’s own reports on Turkey and opium Processing the poppies into heroin and then transporting them through the Balkan route is done by Turkish individuals. And you’re not looking at street thugs in Turkey, you’re looking at the Turkish military and the Turkish police. In 2000, a professor in Turkey issued a documented report saying that a quarter of Turkey’s economy relies on heroin production and distribution. Of course, he had to escape the country, go to Germany and ask for political asylum because he committed treason by criticizing the Turkish government. $50 billion a year from heroin The Time Magazine article didn’t talk about the main actors, the big people, the powerful ones who are distributing, processing, marketing and laundering the proceeds. Those people are not touched. If you look at the report you’ll see the countries involved—Turkey, Cyprus, the UAE. But they were conveniently left out of the Time Magazine article, leaving any American to conclude that the farmers are making $50 billion a year. Again, the culprit is Time Magazine because that is not the case. While the report shows Turkish, UAE and Pakistani involvement, we say they are our allies, we don’t want to touch them, we don’t want to turn them off. In fact, we have lots of good business and sensitive diplomatic relations with them They’re our very close allies, the ones who we are giving billions of dollars of aid to, the ones who come back and buy our weapons. We can’t mess around with things like that. We have too many powerful people, too many powerful companies that are benefiting from this. There is this huge lobby industry that is benefiting from this
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I will read it tomorrow when I am fresh
I kiss your toes for posting this Zip
Love, Palo
#4. To: All, Zipporah, lodwick (#3)
(font color=green>I am starting to read Sibel Edmonds' interview
I am at the very beginning of Part I of interview
and in some cases I would even say engaging in treason.
both Parties
and our mass media are turning a blind eye to it
#5. To: All, lodwick, Zipporah, Lukery, Fred Mertz, statesecrets, aristeides, Sherlock, every concerned citizen (#4)
from Part 1 of Interview
gangsterism, and drug dealing
which brings about police state and fascism
and State Departartment and Pentagon have pressured the current administration to go along with it
naively stupidly blindly believing putting Dems in White House and Congress will solve it
and at this point, I think only citizens are willing to do something about it
because no one in government, or around government, nor our corporate owned mass media
will do anything to stop this!
#8. To: All (#5)
some extracts from above by Sibel Edmonds
Re: Turkish heroin industry, USA arms industry
Replies to Comment # 8.