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You
would think that a
spy scandal such as was reported by FBI wiretap translator
Sibel Edmonds would rate mile-high headlines. So far,
however, the coverage of this story has been limited to the
Washington Post and
here. Edmonds claims that one of her fellow translators
met with a government official of a foreign country even as
the feds were tapping his phone conversations. Edmonds also
avers that she was invited to join the foreign organization
that was under surveillance, and, when she refused, her family
was threatened. The Post still isn't naming the mysterious
"Middle Eastern country" that seems to have penetrated
the FBI's innermost secrets, but last week reporter James
Grimaldi, who broke the story, had an
item in his "Washington Hearsay" column that
reveals some of the details of the ongoing cover-up:
"There
may be various efforts to prompt Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.)
into jump-starting judicial hearings; congressional sources believe that's why
some anonymous senator has placed a hold on a bill by Leahy and Sen. Charles Grassley
(R-Iowa). The bill would give FBI employees federal whistleblower protection. I
can think of a few other reasons for the hold. Although it's too late to silence
Rowley, Senator Anonymous clearly doesn't want to hear what Ms. Edmonds has to
say. Her position, in any case, is none too good: "The
law is meant to protect people such as FBI agent Colleen Rowley, who recently
testified before Congress. Even under that bill, though, protection would be more
tenuous for Sibel Edmonds, the latest whistleblower to be fired by the FBI." That
Ms. Edmonds has come forward, anyway, is a tribute to her patriotism and a reproach
to her superiors, whose motives are questionable at best. The "Homeland Security"
legislation currently being rammed through Congress would jail whistleblowers
like Edmonds, whose story, Grimaldi reports, has been confirmed in its essentials
by the FBI. "But Edmonds was fired because she was 'disruptive,'" he
writes with evident disgust, citing a floor speech by Leahy: "It
is not a good management practice for the FBI to fire the person who reports a
security breach, while nothing happens to the person who allegedly committed the
breach." It
depends, however, on what is being managed. If you're the head of a spy
ring that has infiltrated the top echelons of US law enforcement, and you have
the power to muzzle whistleblowers by firing them and then invoking the gods of
"national security" to cover the whole thing up I would call that
pretty good management practice. It all depends on what side you're on. Speaking
of which: can anybody tell me what side the FBI is on? First veteran agent Colleen
Rowley steps forward with charges that the high command deliberately
obstructed the anti-terrorist effort, specifically blocking the apprehension
of Zacarias Moussaoui and
now Edmonds, with an even more alarming story: a spy ring in the agency's most
sensitive top secret division. A cabal that seems to enjoy immunity from whistleblowers
. Oh,
there goes Raimondo again, off and running with another one of his wacko conspiracy
theories but then what about William Safire's story of how the terrorists
knew the most closely guarded secrets of the White House? Writing in a September
13 New York Times column, "Inside
the Bunker," Safire painted a harrowing portrait of our leaders caught
completely off guard on 9/11, and forced to flee for their lives when it became
apparent that the terrorists had somehow penetrated the security of their inner
sanctum. According to Safire, a "high White House official" told him the following: "A
threatening message received by the Secret Service was relayed to the agents with
the president that 'Air Force One is next.' According to the high official, American
code words were used showing a knowledge of procedures that made the threat credible." This
was confirmed, says Safire, by Karl
Rove, who told him Bush was going to return to Washington before the Secret
Service "informed him that the threat contained language that was evidence
that the terrorists had knowledge of his procedures and whereabouts." One
can only agree with Safire's conclusion: "That
knowledge of code words and presidential whereabouts and possession of secret
procedures indicates that the terrorists may have a mole in the White House
that, or informants in the Secret Service, F.B.I., F.A.A. or C.I.A." Safire's
story of the top-level penetration of the White House is one of the great unsolved
mysteries of 9/11. How did the terrorists get the inside knowledge and
the technology to deliver a threat directly to the Secret Service and why would
they reveal their capabilities in this way? Another
unsolved mystery is why Safire's startling revelation didn't provoke a general
outcry, a congressional investigation, or at least some investigative reporting.
Is the American media completely brain-dead, or are they simply too intimidated
to follow that story? Sure,
there are a lot of nutball conspiracy theories out there. There's that
French guy who says American "right-wingers" bombed the World Trade
Center (and presumably the Pentagon, too); and Michael
Ruppert, who similarly and idiotically avers that we
did it to ourselves. Then there's Cynthia
McKinney and her leftie followers, who, eager to grasp on to any evidence
validating their visceral anti-Americanism, seem to have adopted the Ruppertian
conspiracy theory whole hog. Look at those crazy, greedy Americans they blew
themselves up just
so they could build a Caspian pipeline and make billions for the all-powerful
Carlyle Group! It gets even wilder and wackier when we get into theories involving
the Queen of England and a secret race
of reptilian aliens who live in giant caves beneath the earth.
These whack-jobs
are invariably invoked by those who want to discredit any and all deviations from
the Official Story, but it is hardly credible to put Safire on the same level
as Ruppert. For all the pious complaining about "conspiracy theories"
revolving around 9/11 coming from our oh-so-respectable pundits on
the left as well as the
right, it's a wonder no one even mentions the reason why Ruppert, McKinney,
et al are getting so much attention: because there are a lot of unanswered
questions about the events surrounding 9/11, none of which have even been
properly asked by the media, let alone answered. What
about the penetration of White House security procedures by individuals
purporting to represent the terrorists? What about the claims of Sibel Edmonds
that a cabal of spies inside the FBI's crucial translation division has access
to our wiretaps? What about that
four-part Fox News series by Carl Cameron that exposed a vast Israeli spy
operation in the US? In Cameron's words. "Investigators
suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in
advance, and not shared it." When
Cameron tried to get specifics, he ran into a brick wall: "A
highly placed investigator said there are -quote 'tie-ins.' But when asked for
details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, quote 'evidence linking
these Israelis to 9-11 is classified.'" As
we approach the one-year anniversary of 9/11, an attempt to get the truth de-classified
is being blocked, if not completely derailed. Hearings are being indefinitely
delayed, testimony is being suppressed, witnesses such as Ms. Edmonds are
being threatened and the cult of secrecy is even more deeply imbued in government
circles. Senators Leahy and Grassley are well-meaning, even heroic, but they can't
do it alone. Congress has abdicated its responsibility, and, as for the "mainstream"
media well, just don't expect much from them, in any event. But
all is not smooth sailing for the architects of cover-up. While Congress has generally
abandoned its constitutional duty as the guardian of our liberties and voice of
the people, a few of our elected representatives are beginning to ask questions
and may even be contemplating taking action. Yes, the media is complicit with
government officials in enforcing the culture of secrecy, but a few journalists
refuse to be intimidated. The truth is leaking out, albeit in dribs and
drabs. It may take years, but the events surrounding 9/11 will eventually be revealed.
The only question is when. The
War Party has used 9/11 to browbeat and terrorize Americans into supporting a
war with no end or limits. But new information about what led to The Day is beginning
to cast that seminal event in a new and ominous light. Disdaining these efforts
as "conspiracy theories" and "urban
myths" is getting increasingly difficult, as the unsolved mysteries of
9/11 accumulate and people begin demanding answers. Please
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