How much for that nukie in the window? Boom. Boom.

January 8, 2008 12:21 PM

Sibel Edmonds, the FBI whistleblower under a gag order, recently spilled part of the beans to the Sunday Times. Considering the seriousness of the allegations: moles have infiltrated top US nuclear research facilities; the moles have sold US nuclear secrets to foreign governments; all of this behavior has been aided and abetted by top government US officials in exchange for bribes; you might think a US media outlet would be interested in the story. You'd be wrong. Now it seems she has named names.

Well, really she has posted pictures. Other people have named the names. So who are some of the people accused of facilitating the sale of US nuclear secrets to Turkey, Israel and Pakistan?

Richard Perle - former member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee
Douglas Feith - former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Eric Edelman - current Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey
Marc Grossman - former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
Brent Scowcroft - former Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under GWB, amongst many other things
Larry Franklin - U.S. Air Force Reserve colonel at the Office of Special Plans that pled guilty to passing classified information to AIPAC

Then we have people like Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Dan Burton (R-IN), and just for bipartisan goodness, Tom Lantos (D-CA), and Stephen Solarz (D-NY).

More here, here, here, here, and here.

Previously here.

posted by ryoshu (55 comments total)

Sibel Deniz Edmonds (born 1970 in Iran) ...

Sad to say, but she's dead in the water. Maybe literally.
posted by Avenger at 12:33 PM on January 8, 2008

This doesn't violate her gag order?
posted by chunking express at 12:36 PM on January 8, 2008

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.

This post should have come pre-equipped with a tinfoilhat tag.
posted by Slothrup at 12:42 PM on January 8, 2008

She is also the subject of the documentary Kill the Messenger, which is on Google Video.
posted by homunculus at 12:46 PM on January 8, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

"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.

This post should have come pre-equipped with a tinfoilhat tag."

Yeah, I'd give more credence to the Sunday Times, but even then, there're a lot of unsubstantiated allegations there. Color me skeptical, but intrigued.
posted by klangklangston at 12:49 PM on January 8, 2008

This doesn't violate her gag order?

She's decided to speak up and has offered to talk to the media regardless of the consequences.
posted by homunculus at 12:50 PM on January 8, 2008

A video interview with Sibel Edmonds.
posted by ryoshu at 12:54 PM on January 8, 2008

...she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

My understanding is that she was at the FBI for six months. So they let the nube translate the overt treason at the highest possible levels of government tapes? Maybe. But the one thing the Bush administration CAN do is cover its ass.
posted by shothotbot at 12:55 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Seconding klangklangston. A lot of papers are covering her allegations, but as near as I can see they are, as yet, just accusations. I'd like to see some serious investigative reporting on this though, and I'll be keeping my ears open for further developments.

C'mon media, do your thing!
posted by lekvar at 12:55 PM on January 8, 2008

I'm largely with klang. OTOH, the fact that she was put under a gag order would tend to suggest that she knows something that the powers that be don't want her talking about. On the third hand, if she really was that dangerous why didn't they declare her to be an enemy combattant and ship her off to the gulag, sorry, the Guantanamo Bay "detention camp"?

lekvar What thing would that be? To parrot statements from Republicans as if they were pure gospel truth? To viciously attack Democrats with Republican talking points? To report "All the News that Our Corporate Masters Think is Fit to Print"? Or were you talking about the thing where they hire an ever growing number of loony right wing hatemongers?

I'm amazed, I had no idea there was anyone out there who actually believed in journalism anymore. Didn't your parents tell you that was just a story just like Santa Claus?

Ummm... That, in case it wasn't clear, was intended to be vicous and nasty towards the media, not towards you lekvar.
posted by sotonohito at 1:08 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

My understanding is that she was at the FBI for six months. So they let the nube translate the overt treason at the highest possible levels of government tapes?

As I understand it, this was after 9/11 when they were desperate to translate the enormous backlog of tapes they'd allowed to build up, not realizing what she'd find on there. But when she came forward, they started covering their asses.

C'mon media, do your thing!

60 Minutes interviewed her a few years ago, but since the government gagged her with the states secrets privledge, the MSM doesn't have the guts to talk to her now.
posted by homunculus at 1:09 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

She sure has made a lot of allegations. Has she produced a single copy of a recorded conversation? Did she file any summaries or translations with the FBI? Has anyone obtained a redacted version just to confirm that it exists?

The red flag for me is this:

She has now decided to divulge some of that information after becoming disillusioned with the US authorities’ failure to act.

She was there for six months. In that time, she heard the incriminating conversations, reported them to her supervisor or whatever the internal process was, filed some complaints, became disillusioned that they weren't acting on her super-sensitive stuff, and left.

Did it ever occur to this dummy that she just sent every single one of these guys off to fire up the shredders? If what she says is true, absolutely no evidence of any of this now exists outside of FBI walls (assuming they can't get to the shredders in there). Everything is being destroyed.

Furthermore, the tapes are probably illegal recordings:

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

She needs to be reminded that this isn't Iran or Turkey. Unlike what she wants the FBI to do, which is to indict people based on illegal wiretaps, we have laws preventing this kind of thing. The recorded conversations she was working off of are probably illegal wiretaps or recordings. In other words, inadmissible evidence. The FBI would have to take this info, then conduct a full blown investigation to gather admissible evidence against everyone, so that they could indict everyone at once.

This said, it amazes me sometimes the kinds of people who get security clearances at places like Los Alamos and within defense contractors.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:21 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wait, you mean there might be another reason for me to hate the cartoon villain that is Richard Perle? Sweet. Except for that nuclear proliferation stuff.
posted by moonbiter at 1:24 PM on January 8, 2008

I'm largely with klang. OTOH, the fact that she was put under a gag order would tend to suggest that she knows something that the powers that be don't want her talking about.

Yes, the article establishes she was listening to covert tapes. They are classified and therefore the government can politely and very rightly ask her to shut the hell up. When something is classified, everything relating to that thing gets classified. If the covert recordings include a segment where the target is listening to Enya, that segment is still classified even though nothing in it is a state secret.

Furthermore, just because a covert recording contains hearsay (e.g. X tells Y that Z works at the State Department and accepts bribes), and the government wants the recording kept secret because, it doesn't make it true.

I'm no fan of of any of the people she "names", but Jesus, if your going to try to bring down the President's National Security inner circle, have the foresight to make some copies of the things that are incriminating. And then have the sense of civic duty to throw them up on the pirate bay so the rest of us can work off the primary source material. Don't try to own the story.
posted by Pastabagel at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I still don't see how this concerns the Trilateral Commission, or what it means vis-a-vis the Gnomes of Zurich.

And hell, without the Bilderberg Group involved, nothing gets done. We all know that, even the Mole King knows that.
posted by aramaic at 1:27 PM on January 8, 2008

have the foresight to make some copies of the things that are incriminating.

How dare she whistleblow the wrong way. I mean, jeez, the sheer nerve of some people...
posted by bhance at 1:30 PM on January 8, 2008

<ot>I'm amazed, I had no idea there was anyone out there who actually believed in journalism anymore. Didn't your parents tell you that was just a story just like Santa Claus?

posted by sotonohito 34 minutes ago [+]

Actually, my dad got his degree in journalism back in the 60's. To hear him tell it, the hackery was even worse back then. But, to answer you question, yeah, I think I'd like to see them do their fucking jobs for a change. And I'd like Santa to bring me a pony. You got a problem with that? : )
</ot>
posted by lekvar at 1:55 PM on January 8, 2008

Actually, bhance, yes, how dare she? We have enough problems with this administration to dig into once they're out of office (or, God willing, while they still are there), that if she wants to go around throwing astronomical amounts of mud at people who are, while not saints, MOST LIKELY not in the business of selling nukes to our sworn enemies, she's going to have to come up with at least SOME form of scant proof.

By the way, the idea that ALL of the people she's named are all working together to sell nuclear secrets to the highest bidder is bordering on the crazy. One of them, I could perhaps see, even two, but there's 11 people named in this here FPP. Are you telling me that they're not just misguided people who you disagree with, but that they HATE this country so much and LOVE money so much that they would work their entire lives to get themselves in a position to know nuclear secrets, THEN sell them to the highest bidder... all 11 of them? Doesn't that seem farfetched to anyone?
posted by Inkoate at 1:57 PM on January 8, 2008

Doesn't that seem farfetched to anyone?

Uh, Iran-Contra affair ring any bells? Lots of highly-placed officials (many of them with similar allegiances in fact) collaborating with clandestine terrorist organizations (literally the same bunch we now regard as the Islamist menace) to sell illegal arms right under our noses. And that's a matter of historical record now. Not that there were ever any consequences for those particular violations of US and international law.
posted by saulgoodman at 2:09 PM on January 8, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Inkoate: Agreed that without evidence, her allegations are pretty easy to dismiss.

But...

Are you telling me that they're not just misguided people who you disagree with, but that they HATE this country so much and LOVE money so much that they would work their entire lives to get themselves in a position to know nuclear secrets, THEN sell them to the highest bidder... all 11 of them? Doesn't that seem farfetched to anyone?

Just how much money is involved here? I mean, a few hundred million dollars buys off a whole lot of patriotism. I think the internal rationalizations would be easy, even if it meant the literal destruction of the USA (which I'm sure they don't believe it would): "The gheys, mexicans, and libruls are taking over the country anyhow. To hell with them, I gotta look out for me and my own family..."

I don't think that sounds farfetched at all.
posted by LordSludge at 2:15 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

LordSludge: Also, once you let Realpolitik and "enemy-of-my-enemy" calculations factor into the thinking (which many current and past republican admin officials have demonstrated themselves more than willing to do), it can be possible to rationalize away just about anything as being in the bigger picture national interest. Especially once you factor in the universally presumed net positive economic impact of increased defense spending. Hell, it's now a matter of public record that the US had a CIA contingency plan in effect at one point to trigger a conflict with Cuba while making it look like Cuba had provoked the conflict because it was deemed at some level as being so crucial to the national interest to remove Castro from power. Once a nation goes down the path of making plans to intentionally fake historical events once, what isn't on the table?
posted by saulgoodman at 2:23 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

This post is a joke, right?
posted by KokuRyu at 2:28 PM on January 8, 2008

Richard Perle - former member of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee

Well, he did say he failed us.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:35 PM on January 8, 2008

You know what the Sunday Times also published?
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:40 PM on January 8, 2008

the idea that ALL of the people she's named are all working together to sell nuclear secrets to the highest bidder

As the post details points out - she has only posted some photos - other folks are playing the name game - but her allegations cover more than just the nuke aspects (narcotics, arms sales, FBI misconduct, etc.) So, no, all 9 aren't likely nuke salesmen.
posted by bhance at 3:43 PM on January 8, 2008

She was at the FBI for six months, and she was given access to highly classified, damning material? I think the more likely explanation is her superiors didn't trust her, so they gave her a bunch of juicy-sounding fake intelligence to see what she'd do.
posted by fandango_matt at 3:49 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

She was at the FBI for six months, and she was given access to highly classified, damning material?

As homunculus pointed out, she was hired just after 9/11 (Sept. 20th, 2001) to translate tapes that were, umm, untranslated. Her superiors thought there might be something of interest on the tapes, but due to the entire "haven't been translated yet", didn't know what was on them.

She could be making this entire thing up. Or this could be a scandal that puts Iran-Contra, BCCI and Watergate to shame. If the former is the case, people should ask Rep. Henry Waxman and Sen. Chuck Grassley why they say she is credible. If the latter is the case, people should ask the aforementioned congressmen and the US media why the hell there are no investigations into this.
posted by ryoshu at 4:31 PM on January 8, 2008

I can't understand why the British press has lower standards for accuracy but operates in a country with stricter libel laws than the U.S.. i don't know anything about the truth or falsehood of these allegations, but I do know that a lot of the stuff published in the British press does not make it into American publications not because of any conspiracy but because the American media requires more proof (things like corroboration by additional sources) before it publishes certain things.

You would think in a country with dire libel laws, they would have *higher* standards before they publish, but on second thought, maybe that's why they have the strict libel laws?
posted by Maias at 4:50 PM on January 8, 2008

I think the more likely explanation is her superiors didn't trust her, so they gave her a bunch of juicy-sounding fake intelligence to see what she'd do.

really? you think that's the most likely explanation? what do you think the FBI is run like some chintzy spy-novel version of the M16, pulling elaborate double-dealing plots on their own active agents? And yet, suggestions of business men conspiring to make money is tin-foil hat territory?

sorry, but the idea that the FBI fed her bad information just to see how she'd react seems even more far-fetched to me. what if, reacting to the bad info, she'd decided to go rogue and kill someone for the greater good, like Jack Bauer might?

history is full of leaders betraying their countrymen to further their own personal interests. what do you think makes our particular time in history so fricking exceptional?
posted by saulgoodman at 5:02 PM on January 8, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Thread. Useless. Mole Man and the Moloids of Subterranea. Without. (Or Hans Moleman, or Secret Squirrel’s side kick from Morocco)

“This said, it amazes me sometimes the kinds of people who get security clearances at places like Los Alamos and within defense contractors.”

I ever mention I snuck into a high secure area wearing a gorilla* suit?
(*no, not guerilla)

And indeed, it doesn’t have to be just for bribes. Ollie North really really really really really really really loved America that much to y’know, shack up with Noriega and take bribes and obstruct justice and lie to congress, and destroy evidence, and smuggle cocaine, n’junk. (Not that the Boland amendment wasn’t crap, but still...)

Who benefits?
Unless she’s a provocateur, doesn’t look like Edmonds is getting much out of this. Don’t know if she’s going for a book deal, but taking on this kind of big game doesn’t look worth it.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:11 PM on January 8, 2008

*rereads*
Maybe she is f’ing crazy. But whos word are we taking here? Perle? Feith? Hastert? He lugs a load of shit behind him that would clog the Mississippi. I wouldn’t believe him if he told me it was raining.

On the other hand the group does seem somewhat similar ideologically which could go either way. Maybe it’s a move to discredit them. Doesn’t seem like they’re inner circle.
posted by Smedleyman at 5:22 PM on January 8, 2008

Actually, according to her, what happened was that there were two lines of command. Her superiors, who were corrupt, deliberately put her on stuff they weren't involved in. However, FBI agents had become suspicious about recordings that they suspected involved criminal activity, but had been labeled "unpertinant" by other translaters. The FBI agents took it upon themselves to have Sibel Edmonds reanalyze these unpertinant recordings, which is where she found the juicy stuff. These FBI agents have also come forward to testify on Edmonds' behalf.

So pretending that she's some lone nut, or that there's no way she'd get ahold of this stuff is ridiculous. She was put on it by agents who suspected something fishy was going on and trusted her. Also, criticizing her because there hasn't been a detailed investigation (after years of her trying to get one started) is completly unfair. Her whole point in speaking out is that there SHOULD be an investigation, and the gag order on her is real. So she's taking a big risk doing what she is.

Perhaps the post suffers from link exhaustion, but I would suggest going to the Vanity Fair article hosted here.
posted by Humanzee at 5:33 PM on January 8, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

A lot of people crapped on this thread but thank you for posting it. I hadn't seen the documentary and it answers many of the questions people have.
posted by ao4047 at 5:54 PM on January 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

[A couple comments nixed. If you're just going to call each other names, do it somewhere else.]
posted by cortex at 6:30 PM on January 8, 2008

Prelude
posted by hortense at 6:37 PM on January 8, 2008

I think the more likely explanation is her superiors didn't trust her, so they gave her a bunch of juicy-sounding fake intelligence to see what she'd do.

So then when they found out what she would do, which is that she reported her concerns, they were just testing her loyalty? She went through all the proper channels with this stuff, and at every step was met with a stone wall. Why would "her superiors" keep up with the ruse? Nothing better to do than play elaborate practical jokes on random turkish translators?

Anyway, the original allegations concerned "incompetence and corruption" in the translation department, not the content of the intercepts. But you can't be blamed, I suppose, for being totally ignorant of the details of the case, as other than the (retroactively classified!) 60 Minutes episode in 2002 and the Vanity Fair article in 2005, there hasn't been a peep about the case anywhere in the American media, as illustrated in absence in the FPP.

Her case was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General - here's what they concluded:

Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations. Our review also found that many - although not all - of Edmonds' allegations about the co-worker had some basis in fact. This evidence does not prove, and we are not suggesting, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that espionage or any improper disclosures of FBI information occurred. However, we believe the FBI should have taken Edmonds' allegations more seriously and investigated them more thoroughly. As discussed in this report, the FBI's investigation of the information regarding the co-worker was significantly flawed. Had the FBI investigated the claims thoroughly, it would have found that many of Edmonds' allegations regarding the co-worker were supported by documentary evidence or other witnesses.

This part of the 60 minutes piece features Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) stating emphatically that her claims are credible.

See also

Sibel Edmonds v. Department of Justice (ACLU report)

The Silencing of Sibel Edmonds (Village Voice)

One would think that if "she was just being tested" or "she's just making shit up" there would have been a definitive resolution of some kind long ago, rather than a seemingly endless sequence of "state secrets" rulings and gag orders.

So yes, she's prepared to go to jail to tell her story, and no, it's not a joke.
posted by dinsdale at 7:51 PM on January 8, 2008 [9 favorites has favorites]

people who are, while not saints, MOST LIKELY not in the business of selling nukes to our sworn enemies

Israel's one of the U.S.'s sworn enemies? It's so hard to keep up.
posted by mediareport at 8:14 PM on January 8, 2008

The Lawrence Franklin thing (which landed him 12 years) certainly comes to mind ...
posted by bhance at 8:26 PM on January 8, 2008

The whole story is interesting, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to do now. Anything incriminating has quite certainly been destroyed, so I don't see what good an investigation would do. Her testimony won't be enough to work from by itself, even if it's combined with a few other FBI agents. The whole thing looks like the bad guys are going to win, and there's not a bit that can be done about it now.

She found out about something bad going on, she went to the wrong people with it -- through no fault of her own -- they realized that someone was onto them and shut her up with a gag order, and almost certainly went and destroyed everything incriminating. Game over. You only get one shot at stuff like that. (Unless you can back off and hope they do something illegal again, which for all we know might be what the investigative services are doing now, and why they were trying to keep her from spewing it all over the press.)

The only productive outcome I can see happening at this point is improving the whistleblowing procedures so that in the future, if someone discovers a smoking gun pointing towards high-level espionage or corruption, they can take it to someone who stands a chance of not being dirty themselves.

I certainly don't see any hope for justice here.
posted by Kadin2048 at 8:37 PM on January 8, 2008

@Pastabagel: Yes, the article establishes she was listening to covert tapes. They are classified and therefore the government can politely and very rightly ask her to shut the hell up. When something is classified, everything relating to that thing gets classified. If the covert recordings include a segment where the target is listening to Enya, that segment is still classified even though nothing in it is a state secret.

So even if the tapes show that elements of the government at very high levels are engaged in treason, it's ok for the administration to say "oh, that's classified"?


@Maias: I do know that a lot of the stuff published in the British press does not make it into American publications not because of any conspiracy but because the American media requires more proof (things like corroboration by additional sources) before it publishes certain things.

You've got to be fucking kidding me. Maybe it's because the American media are nothing but a bunch of bought-and-paid-for whores who won't cover anything that doesn't get corporate approval. The phrases "higher standards of accuracy" and "American media" do not belong together at all. Our civil liberties have been whittled away for years but all you hear on ABCNNBCBS is Britney fucking Spears's latest tribulations. Do you actually watch American media?
posted by krash2fast at 8:39 PM on January 8, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

She's a plant. Seen it a million times. Whistleblower leaks possibly incriminating shit, then turns crackpot on cue, discrediting whistleblowers, derailing investigation.

Works every time, suckers.
posted by breezeway at 9:57 PM on January 8, 2008

as near as I can see they are, as yet, just accusations. I'd like to see some serious investigative reporting on this though

Maybe you and klang should watch the Kill the Messenger video together. Get some popcorn, snuggle up on the couch... you know, make a evening of it.

Please don't start making out until you get to 24:00 into it, though. You wouldn't want to miss this part:

In January 2005, Sibel and her lawyers won partial declassification of the Justice Department's internal report into her case. The report partially endorsed her claims. While it did not disclose the content of the FBIs wiretaps, for Sibel, it still represented a victory: it upheld her credibility.

[...later, 29:10...]

"It's clear that it [the case] should go forward because the Justice Department's own Inspector General concluded that her allegations were fully supported, and that the FBI terminated her services because she made them." [Ann Beeson, Associate Director, ACLU]

posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:21 PM on January 8, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

I do know that a lot of the stuff published in the British press does not make it into American publications not because of any conspiracy but because the American media requires more proof (things like corroboration by additional sources) before it publishes certain things.

That seems hard to believe considering Britain's libel laws.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 10:26 PM on January 8, 2008

Israel's one of the U.S.'s sworn enemies? It's so hard to keep up.

Turkish and Israeli elements are implicated in selling the materials to unnamed countries and also Pakistan. I assume the "unnamed countries" must be people like North Korea, Libya?
posted by cell divide at 10:35 PM on January 8, 2008

at-Largely: Larisa Alexandrovna
posted by hortense at 10:56 PM on January 8, 2008

She's a plant. Seen it a million times. Whistleblower leaks possibly incriminating shit, then turns crackpot on cue, discrediting whistleblowers, derailing investigation.

Works every time, suckers.
posted by breezeway at 12:57 AM on January 9

oh pleeeeeeeeeeeze
posted by caddis at 1:17 AM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Her case was investigated by the Office of the Inspector General - here's what they concluded:

Our investigation concluded that the FBI did not, and still has not, adequately investigated these allegations. Our review also found that many - although not all - of Edmonds' allegations about the co-worker had some basis in fact. This evidence does not prove, and we are not suggesting, that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that espionage or any improper disclosures of FBI information occurred. However, we believe the FBI should have taken Edmonds' allegations more seriously and investigated them more thoroughly. As discussed in this report, the FBI's investigation of the information regarding the co-worker was significantly flawed. Had the FBI investigated the claims thoroughly, it would have found that many of Edmonds' allegations regarding the co-worker were supported by documentary evidence or other witnesses.


And if you read the IG report, you will find that it only addresses allegations made by Edmonds regarding possible espionage by a co-worker at the FBI (apparently another linguist) -- no connection whatsoever to the claims in the OP
posted by Dolukhanova at 7:35 AM on January 9, 2008

oh pleeeeeeeeeeeze

You're better off not responding to obvious trolls.
posted by breezeway at 8:08 AM on January 9, 2008

She's a plant. Seen it a million times. Whistleblower leaks possibly incriminating shit, then turns crackpot on cue, discrediting whistleblowers, derailing investigation.

As depressing as it is, I don't think that's out of the question. It would be a massive propaganda victory for very little effort. Then again, could all those ex-spooks in her whistleblower organization be that careless? (Well, she is very good looking. [NOT SEXIST]) Or if they're all plants too, I would think that'd make the campaign that much riskier and more expensive.

If she ever does spill all the beans, we'll know.
posted by Anything at 10:14 AM on January 9, 2008

If she ever does spill all the beans, we'll know.

Eh, of course, if she does go crackpot, we won't know. Paranoia sucks.
posted by Anything at 10:31 AM on January 9, 2008

And if you read the IG report, you will find ... no connection whatsoever to the claims in the OP

And if you spend some time trying to understand how the situation developed (eg. Kill the Messenger), you'd see that the original IG investigation looked into her original complaint, which is that there was a turkish spy in the translation department and nothing was done about it - and this was basically confirmed by the IG report. What tipped her off was that she was (unsuccessfully) recruited by the spy! Originally, she had no intention of discussing the actual content of the wiretaps as this was and is obviously classified, it was only as the years went by and every avenue of redress was closed to her, until she became "the most gagged person in American history", that she began to up the ante by threatening to reveal the actual substantive contents of the intercepts. See, nobody can comment on or investigate the actual details of the case, because of "national security", "state secrets", "executive privilege" and the like. We just have to trust them. Should we?

She's a plant. Seen it a million times.

Yeah, maybe she is. The scientific method requires that all possibilities be considered with an open mind. And it is (infinitesimally) possible that she was just thrown in there to fuck with the ACLU.

Or, on the other hand, maybe she's right, and Richard Perle, Douglas Feith et al. have been conspiring to spread nuclear weapons throughout the middle east for a long time. Hey, Feith, isn't he the "Office of Special Plans" guy, you know, the group that kept telling the Pentagon intelligence analysts to "sex up" their estimates of Saddam's weapons programs? So we already know that these creeps are only too happy to lie in order to start a major regional conflict, with hundreds of thousands of deaths, and both of them have close ties to Turkey and Israel.

And hey, what about that Valerie Plame chick? She was working on.... nuclear proliferation in the middle east! And her whole operation - front organizations, cover, contacts - was completely blown out of the water by having her name published. That may be a total coincidence. Or maybe she's a plant too. Or maybe not.

Another "data point" which may help in the triangulation is a BBC documentary from last year called The Nuclear Walmart about A.Q.Khan and the "islamic bomb". (Sorry about the youtube vid - it starts with 4 minutes of news and weather, the actual program begins at about 4:30.) It contains an eerily familiar litany of whistleblowers and coverups going all the way back to the 70s and 80s. Of particular interest is the story of Richard Barlow (starting around 13:30 in the youtube vid) who was a CIA operative investigating Khan's network in the 1980s.
posted by dinsdale at 11:52 AM on January 9, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

And if you spend some time trying to understand how the situation developed (eg. Kill the Messenger), you'd see that the original IG investigation looked into her original complaint, which is that there was a turkish spy in the translation department and nothing was done about it - and this was basically confirmed by the IG report. What tipped her off was that she was (unsuccessfully) recruited by the spy! Originally, she had no intention of discussing the actual content of the wiretaps as this was and is obviously classified, it was only as the years went by and every avenue of redress was closed to her, until she became "the most gagged person in American history", that she began to up the ante by threatening to reveal the actual substantive contents of the intercepts. See, nobody can comment on or investigate the actual details of the case, because of "national security", "state secrets", "executive privilege" and the like. We just have to trust them. Should we?


The IG report was cited to buttress the validity of the claims cited in the OP. It doesn't.
posted by Dolukhanova at 2:36 PM on January 9, 2008

nice to see that the tinfoilhat charge is wearing thin
we americans seem to have such a hard time keeping an open mind about things
there are lots of possibilities about this case surely. Ellsberg himself believes this case dwarves the Perntagon paper The US media is running from this story...
posted by dougiedd at 3:49 PM on January 9, 2008

“we americans seem to have such a hard time keeping an open mind about things”

Now that’s an understatement. Bunny Greenhouse anyone? Donald Vance? Nate Ertel? Julie McBride? Robert Isakson? Bueller? Bueller?

...y’all don’t know what the hell I’m talking about do you?
Whistleblowers keep getting seriously shafted in the U.S. again and again.
People know - consciously know - that the administration was - at the very least - absolutely wrong about WMDs in Iraq and continue to prosecute the war. There is massive evidence of war profiteering by the company that the Vice President was once in the top ranks of. Undeniable, and public evidence. People know this.

Oh, but something like this has gotta be b.s.?
Hard time keeping an open mind?

Hell, I wouldn’t trust anyone who was part of the Bush administration to sell me an apple.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:16 PM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft
posted by homunculus at 8:34 PM on January 20, 2008