"All Left Wing, Liberals hate this country and wish for defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan"

"Left Wing Liberals are lucky we dont create a new enemies list and make their life hell"

"Left Wing Liberals simply want to create more government jobs for themselves"

I wonder what the response will be to this from the left wing liberals...waiting...

Anti Pat says:"In WWII we were attacked, in Iraq, Bush was the attacker. You call our troops heroes, the enemy calls theirs heroes and martyrs. Clinton came closer than Bush ever has in taking out OBL, Bush had three prior warnings about the 911 attack and the dumbass still let it happen. The only Hitler and Nazis are Bush, Neocons, and skinheads like you.

Sean: Ummm, you do realize there Anti Pat that Clinton attacked Serbia not once but twice/with ZERO UN sanctions on Serbia at the time. I am sure you were totally against that werent YOU?

The lack of transparency leaves us all like the old fashioned Kremlinologists, trying to figure out deep institutional secrets from the leaderships' relative positions on the dias in public occasions.

In this spirit, I would add this comment. Through most of my lifetime the command of the seventh fleet has been the most prestigious operational command in the Navy.

If Fallon is now taking over the Central Command he may be taking a step down or enhancing his prestige with a combat command. I lean toward the latter.

Will he better enhance his prestige by getting us out of the Iraq quagmire in good order, or by leading us into a struggle with Iran.

The answer has to be obvious.

Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY
Robert Chapman

I oppose the Iraq war but even more troubling is the question of our preparedness. did we have enough, and properly trained, foot soldiers for invasion and occupation? Did our post-war plans regarding treatment of military and civic personnel help or hinder our peace objectives? What were our plans for stablizing peaceful relations between various religious sects. What would be the effect of state's security with the nationalization of the national guard? If America was in such immenent danger from Iraq, why didn't President Bush and Congress re-institute the draft? Can these questions be answered through a Court Martial of our Comander in Chief?

And to think that over 3,100 soldiers have died and over 25,000 are maimed because of these IDIOT republicans that ran our country. All too stop a nuclear threat that did not exist. Scooter, Rove, Cheney, Armitage, and Bush should all be tried for murder. And those who voted for Bush and still support these bozo's should do some very very deep inner reflection.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/opinion/07weds1.html?th&emc=th

Editorial

A Libby Verdict

Published: March 7, 2007
There will be a great deal written and said in coming days about the frustrations of the Scooter Libby verdict -- that it did not tell us whether someone deliberately blew Valerie Plame Wilson's cover or erase serious concerns about the prosecutor's abuse of the First Amendment. Let's focus first on what the verdict does say.

One of the most senior officials in the White House, Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, was caught lying to the F.B.I. He appears to have been trying to cover up a smear campaign that was orchestrated by his boss against the first person to unmask one of the many untruths that President Bush used to justify invading Iraq. He was charged with those crimes, defended by the best lawyers he could get, tried in an open courtroom and convicted of serious felonies. Mr. Libby walked freely out of the court, had his say in public and will be allowed to appeal.

It was another reminder of how precious the American judicial system is, at a time when it is under serious attack from the same administration Mr. Libby served. That administration is systematically denying the right of counsel, the right to evidence and even the right to be tried to scores of prisoners who may have committed no crimes at all.

And although we still do not know the answer to the original mystery, the case provided a look at the methodical way that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Libby, Karl Rove and others in the Bush inner circle set out to discredit Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson IV. Mr. Wilson, a career diplomat, was sent by the State Department in 2002 to check out a British intelligence report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from the government of Niger for a secret nuclear weapons program. In his 2003 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In July 2003, Mr. Wilson wrote in an Op-Ed article in The Times that what he had found did not support that claim. The specter of a nuclear-armed Iraq was central to Mr. Bush's case for rushing to war. So, the trial testimony showed, Mr. Cheney orchestrated an assault on Mr. Wilson's credibility with the help of Mr. Libby and others. They whispered to journalists that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and that nepotism was the reason he had been chosen for the trip.

That is what we know from the Libby trial, and it is some of the clearest evidence yet that this administration did not get duped by faulty intelligence; at the very least, it cherry-picked and hyped intelligence to justify the war. What Mr. Wilson found, and subsequent investigations confirmed, was that there was one trip in 1999 -- not "recently," but four years before Mr. Bush's statement -- by an Iraqi official to Niger and that during that trip, uranium was never discussed.

What we still do not know is whether a government official used Ms. Wilson's name despite knowing that she worked undercover. That is a serious offense, which could have put her and all those who had worked with her in danger. We also do not understand why the federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, chose to wage war with the news media in assembling his case, going so far as to jail a Times reporter, Judith Miller, for refusing to reveal the name of a confidential source.

The potential damage from that decision remains of real concern. But it was still a breath of fresh air to see someone in this administration, which specializes in secrecy, prevarication and evading blame, finally called to account.

About your January 30th blog.

"I've been mulling over an NBC Nightly News report from Iraq last Friday in which a number of soldiers expressed frustration with opposition to war in the United States.

I'm sure the soldiers were expressing a majority opinion common amongst the ranks - that's why it is news"

Come on. Why would a majority opinion be in the news? Don't we cover only the most radical and provacative these days? It's all about those TV rating systems and capitalist dollar signs.

I come from a military family of three generations and because of it, we as a whole view war as the most horrible last resort. You cannot lump every member of the military into one large stereotype which you can blast your condescending comments.

People in uniform join for all sorts of reasons, but I've found that mostly it is because its a way out of a life that's leading no where. You sir, might know a little bit about ambition, a betterment of oneself and his family.
You talk of how the American soldier believes he is better than everyone else. Yet in your blog you write in the most condescending manner.
You equate them to mere mercenaries.
Yet don't you do what you can to make a little change in your pocket? Doesn't the Everyman strive for something better and bigger than himself, to climb the socioeconomic ladder?
Try for one second to believe that these men and women are humans. All humans, even yourself, are in some degree egocentric. We all need reassurance that what we're doing is right and just. So when they're being shot at every other day left and right, when they live day in and day out with the fear that they may never come home, when the only comfort they get is from a cheap cigar and an occasional letter from home, you have no right to say that they should not lose perspective. Let them think that if they die, they will have died for a purpose, not in vain. That they are fighting for a country who cares about them. Leave them alone and condemn the idiocy of this American bureaucracy instead.
As a general rule, I try to never speak about matters I haven't experienced. It's worked for me so far.

Pat Riot,

The first point I want to make about you is that you are an ideological moron. You watch too many movies and don't focus on pertinent information on the Middle East. In WWII we were attacked, in Iraq, Bush was the attacker. You call our troops heroes, the enemy calls theirs heroes and martyrs. 523 marines died in Lebanon, but 500,000 Iranians died in the Iran-Iraq war with the United States backing Iraq and Sadam, so you wonder why they hate us? Clinton came closer than Bush ever has in taking out OBL, Bush had three prior warnings about the 911 attack and the dumbass still let it happen. The only Hitler and Nazis are Bush, Neocons, and skinheads like you.

Mr. Arkin- would you rather we give away our troop movements to the enemy? This was the same Iranian terrorist enemy that killed 523 brave heroic Marines in Lebanon many years ago. They are killing American heroes in Iraq right now, and you are against this? We need to take the fight to the enemy before the enemy takes the fight to us. If Bill Clinton had spent some of the time he spent with interns focusing on the terrorists- Iran, then Iraq, bin Laden, we would be better off today and the world would be more peaceful. Because Bush wants to leave a legacy of peace and democracy in the mideast you oppose this? i'm gonna say it again- let's let the military do their job. during WWII, the media was on OUR side and wanted America to win. During Vietnam and in the war of terror, that's no longer the case. We need a unified America to defeat the Islamo-Nazis. we must deal with the Hitler of Iran if the world is finally to be at peace.

Posted by: Pat Riot

"The other and more likely possibility is that Fallon is merely the symbol of institutional military impotence and failings in the face of ideology."
Of course, the ideology of world domination by a predatory elite exemplified by men like Abram N. Shulsky head of the Iranian Directorate at the Pentagon. Mr. Shulsky is an expert at using the US military to accomplish the objectives of the Project For a New America Century as he was the director of the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon in the run up to the successful war in Iraq. Successful if you consider the objectives spelled out in Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm. Now whose realm do you think we are talking about? Could it be that Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, Eliot Abrams, Phillip Zelikow, Scooter Libby, Dov Zakheim, Richard Pearle and many other neo-cons are using the impotent US military to wage war by deception? Mr. Arkin can't tell the truth here, but he certainly points in the direction we should look if we want to know what is really going on. This is all public information easy to analyze. The USA and Israel are going to attack Iran. If fact the war is already being waged by proxy, finance, and assassination. Will Iran keep its head and refuse to retaliate? If so expect a false flag operation to justify bombing Iran, soon. The assets are in place in the Persian Gulf, Afganistan, Iraq, and most important at the Pentagon as Mr. Arkin hints to those capable of reading between his lines. My recomendation is to go long oil. The Iranians may have enough cruise missiles to swarm the carrier strike forces and close the Straits of Hormuz. Look at the damage done to the army by a
few rag tag insurgents in Iraq.If our navy takes a hit its nukes or come home and buy oil like an honest country and leave Israel to its fate.

Mr. Arkin- would you rather we give away our troop movements to the enemy? This was the same Iranian terrorist enemy that killed 523 brave heroic Marines in Lebanon many years ago. They are killing American heroes in Iraq right now, and you are against this? We need to take the fight to the enemy before the enemy takes the fight to us. If Bill Clinton had spent some of the time he spent with interns focusing on the terrorists- Iran, then Iraq, bin Laden, we would be better off today and the world would be more peaceful. Because Bush wants to leave a legacy of peace and democracy in the mideast you oppose this? i'm gonna say it again- let's let the military do their job. during WWII, the media was on OUR side and wanted America to win. During Vietnam and in the war of terror, that's no longer the case. We need a unified America to defeat the Islamo-Nazis. we must deal with the Hitler of Iran if the world is finally to be at peace.

William, Do you like to take it up the wazoo?

I'm a gay farmer.

The only axe grinder is Alex, too bad he has no wood to chop.

DC

DC writes :"...has failed in Iraq"

All too eager to label it a failure. In 1971 when asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought of the French revolution, Zhou En Lai, China's first prime minister,replied "its too soon to tell". Sadam is out, many would have you believe it was better with him. Time will tell what happens but the current crop of naysayers have there own ax to grind.

Posted by: alex

P. J. Casey,

Very well stated on China and Iran. With Hong Kong and China, I'm not sure who took over whom from the point of economic influence?

DC

While I am not up to date on China or a China scholar, I did take all the courses available in Chinese history that were available at my university for informational purposes and college credits.
Any aggressive move by China will be to retake what they regard as their territory and not foreign territory. On one point the Nationalist and the Communist would have agreed is that Taiwan is Chinese. Further,economic investments in China from Taiwan are binding it closer to the mainland. I don't think force is necessary for reunification. They do not have a history of Imperialism.
They are, however, economic Imperialists and present a danger to the world in an economic sense. However, each country could protect their economic independence with high tarrifs, which I would recommend.
I do not believe that Iran poses a threat to the U.S. or Israel, if it did have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are weapons of uncontolled mass destruction, and would take out Jerusalem, the Palesinians, and parts, if not all, of neighboring Islamic states. Such an attack is highly unlikely.
War with either Iran or China would be a result of our own stupidity, and it is not inevitable.

Posted by: P. J. Casey

Barack Obama on Gun Control
Democratic Jr Senator (IL); previously State Senator

Keep guns out of inner cities--but also problem of morality
I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manfuacturer's lobby. But I also believe that when a gangbanger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels someone disrespected him, we have a problem of morality. Not only do ew need to punish thatman for his crime, but we need to acknowledge that there's a hole in his heart, one that government programs alone may not be able to repair.
Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.215 Oct 1, 2006

Ban semi-automatics, and more possession restrictions

* Principles that Obama supports on gun issues:Ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.
* Increase state restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms.
* Require manufacturers to provide child-safety locks with firearms.

Source: 1998 IL State Legislative National Political Awareness Test Jul 2, 1998

Voted NO on prohibiting lawsuits against gun manufacturers.
A bill to prohibit civil liability actions from being brought or continued against manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others. Voting YES would:

* Exempt lawsuits brought against individuals who knowingly transfer a firearm that will be used to commit a violent or drug-trafficking crime
* Exempt lawsuits against actions that result in death, physical injury or property damage due solely to a product defect
* Call for the dismissal of all qualified civil liability actions pending on the date of enactment by the court in which the action was brought
* Prohibit the manufacture, import, sale or delivery of armor piercing ammunition, and sets a minimum prison term of 15 years for violations
* Require all licensed importers, manufacturers and dealers who engage in the transfer of handguns to provide secure gun storage or safety devices

Reference: Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act; Bill S 397 ; vote number 2005-219 on Jul 29, 2005

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

Support Senator Webb's bill to rein in the President on Iran

Senator Jim Webb introduced a bill that requires the President to get approval from Congress before taking military in Iran. Call your senators and ask them to support Sen. Webb's bill.

http://www.moveon.org/

DC writes :"...has failed in Iraq"

All too eager to label it a failure. In 1971 when asked by Henry Kissinger what he thought of the French revolution, Zhou En Lai, China's first prime minister,replied "its too soon to tell". Sadam is out, many would have you believe it was better with him. Time will tell what happens but the current crop of naysayers have there own ax to grind.

PJ write:War with either Iran or China would be a result of our own stupidity

no, it takes two to tango, there are quite a few stupid people in Iran as well as china.

While I am not up to date on China or a China scholar, I did take all the courses available in Chinese history that were available at my university for informational purposes and college credits.
Any aggressive move by China will be to retake what they regard as their territory and not foreign territory. On one point the Nationalist and the Communist would have agreed is that Taiwan is Chinese. Further,economic investments in China from Taiwan are binding it closer to the mainland. I don't think force is necessary for reunification. They do not have a history of Imperialism.
They are, however, economic Imperialists and present a danger to the world in an economic sense. However, each country could protect their economic independence with high tarrifs, which I would recommend.
I do not believe that Iran poses a threat to the U.S. or Israel, if it did have nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are weapons of uncontolled mass destruction, and would take out Jerusalem, the Palesinians, and parts, if not all, of neighboring Islamic states. Such an attack is highly unlikely.
War with either Iran or China would be a result of our own stupidity, and it is not inevitable.

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/politics/16843001.htm

White House panel OKs surveillance plans
WARRANTLESS EAVESDROPPING, FINANCIAL MONITORING UPHOLD RIGHTS, IT SAYS

By Hope Yen
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A White House privacy board is giving its stamp of approval to two of the Bush administration's surveillance programs -- electronic eavesdropping and financial tracking -- and says they do not violate citizens' civil liberties.

Democrats newly in charge of Congress quickly criticized the findings, which they said were questionable given some of the board members' close ties with the Bush administration.

``Their current findings and any additional conclusions they reach will be taken with a grain of salt until they become fully independent,'' said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.

Work in secrecy

After operating mostly in secret for a year, the five-member Privacy and Civil Liberties Board is preparing to release its first report to Congress next week.

The report finds that the National Security Agency's warrantless-eavesdropping program and the Treasury Department's monitoring of international banking transactions have sufficient privacy protections, three board members told the Associated Press in telephone interviews.

The programs have multiple layers of review before sensitive information is accessed, they said.

``We looked at the program, we visited NSA and met with the top people all the way down to those doing the hands-on work,'' said Carol Dinkins, a Houston attorney and former Reagan administration assistant attorney general who chairs the board.

``The program is structured and implemented in a way that is properly protective and attentive to civil liberties,'' she said.

Some board members were troubled by the Homeland Security Department's error-ridden no-fly lists, which critics say use subjective or inconclusive data to flag suspect travelers.

Anti-terror screening

One area the board will focus on in its report is the computerized anti-terrorism screening system recently announced by DHS and used for years without travelers' knowledge to assign risk assessments to millions of Americans who fly abroad.

``That's a place where there's a lot of opportunity for improvement,'' Dinkins said.

Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House counsel and the lone Democrat on the panel, described the board's first report to Congress as modest. He said most of the work in the past year was spent being briefed on the administration's surveillance programs.

``We felt reassured regarding the checks-and-balance concerns,'' Davis said. He said that after several classified briefings, members were impressed by the multiple layers of review, which included audit trails to track whoever has access to the data.

Still, Davis said he anticipated the board will continue to monitor the program as needed.

The board's initial findings come as Congress is moving forward on measures to give the board more authority and make it more independent of the president. Created in late 2004, the panel was established as a compromise between Congress and the White House after a recommendation by the Sept. 11 commission.

Jurors convict Libby on four of five charges
Cheney's ex-aide faces 30 years in CIA leak case; sentencing set for June

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17479718/

BREAKING NEWS
NBC News and news services
Updated: 7 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was acquitted on just one of five charges after a trial that focused renewed attention on the Bush administration's claims of evidence about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room. His lawyer, Theodore Wells, said they were "very disappointed."

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he was gratified by the verdict.

"The results are actually sad," he added. "It's sad that we had a situation where a high level official person who worked in the office of the vice president obstructed justice and lied under oath. We wish that it had not happened, but it did."

White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said that President Bush "respected the jury's verdict" and was "saddened for Scooter Libby and his family."

Perino said there will be no more White House comment because it is an ongoing legal case. She said Bush had watched the verdict on television in the Oval Office with White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and senior adviser Dan Bartlett.

'It's about time'
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid welcomed the jury's verdict. "It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," he said.

Although Libby was the one convicted, Reid said, "his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney's role in this sordid affair. Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct."

Asked about that, Perino said, "I'm not commenting on a hypothetical situation" and added that "I'm aware of no such request."

The verdict was read on the 10th day of deliberations. Libby faces up to 30 years in prison, though under federal sentencing guidelines likely will receive far less.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton ordered a pre-sentencing report be completed by May 15. Judges use such reports to help determine sentences.

Libby faced two counts of perjury, two counts of lying to the FBI and one count of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors said he discussed Plame's name with reporters and, fearing prosecution, made up a story to make those discussions seem innocuous.

Mr. Arkin,

"Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and its meddling in Iraqi affairs, Fallon says, are "destabilizing, unhelpful actions that are inimical to what we would like to see in this region.""

Iran incurred over 500,000 casualties at the hands of Sunni Baathist Iraq. The Iranian opinion is that the United States is "meddling" in Iraq to partially restore the individuals responsible for the deaths of its citizens. I know the United States would never allow such a state of affairs on it's borders. Nor has the United States done anything to bring to justice Iraqi's who committed atrocities against Iranian soldiers and citizen during the Iran-Iraq War, including the heaviest use of gas since WWI. The gas attacks on the Kurds are minuscule compared to the gas attacks on the Iranians.

Mr. Arkin,

"But Fallon's history with regard to war plans vis a vis China tells a far more complex story: I have confirmed that Adm. Fallon indeed directed his planners in Hawaii not to prepare contingency "strategic" air strikes against mainland Chinese targets as part of U.S. options in a China-Taiwan contingency."

Developing contingency plans can have a down side that suppresses updated intel. I'm all for contingency plans with a procedure that mandates contingency plan updates based on fresh intel. This was one of the failures with Iraq.

Mr. Arkin,

"So the missing ingredient here, what I've written about before, is the need for greater transparency about our war plans. I'm not arguing that the United States publish its troop sailings, merely that we understand what contingency planning actually is and have some discussion and debate about the pros and cons of preparing for the worst."

Any contingency planning will be impacted by the competency of the commander and chief and the administration. Here again, case in point, the current administration more bent on political power and not military competency has failed in Iraq, this is proof the executive branch needs, since apparently it is incapable of doing so itself, a sanity check from the legislative branch before executive branch commits itself to selling a war to the American public as if war was a box of soap.

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

PRESENT THE MASSIVE PRIMA FACIE CASE ON 9/11 TO THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINIION
(But don't piss up a rope) RALPH SCHOENMAN Author, political-analyst and activist Ralph Schoenman gives the concluding remarks of the grand jury strategy workshop June 3, 2006 at the 9/11: Revealing the Truth/Reclaiming Our Future conference held at the Embassy Suits Hotel/O'Hare Rosemont, in Chicago. The 3-day event was hosted by 911Truth.org and MUJCA-NET. Other workshop speakers were Kathleen Ferrick Rosenblatt, Lynn Pentz and Phil Berg.(part 4 of 4

To see the video remarks please go to:

http://www.snowshoefilms.com/featured.html

Anybody seen the C-in-C lately? Seems he is ducking the important issues and running around the country for photo ops on small issues! No improvement in the the hurricane states! No improvement in Social Security or Social problems! No improvement in the neglect of Seniors who have run out of funds to pay the outrageous cost of Medical care!
WHERE IS THE C-IN-C?//

For uncensored news please bookmark:

otherside123.blogspot.com
www.wsws.org
www.takingaimradio.info
www.onlinejournal.com

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1818.shtml

Two FBI whistleblowers confirm illegal wiretapping of government officials and misuse of FISA

National Security Whistleblowers Coalition
Mar 6, 2007, 01:39

State secrets privilege was used to cover up corruption and silence whistleblowers

The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) has obtained a copy of an official complaint filed by a veteran FBI Special Agent, Gilbert Graham, with the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG). SA Graham's protected disclosures report the violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in conducting electronic surveillance of high-profile U.S. public officials.

Before his retirement in 2002, SA Gilbert Graham worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO) Squad NS-24. One of the main areas of Mr. Graham's counterintelligence investigations involved espionage activities by Turkish officials and agents in the United States. On April 2, 2002, Graham filed with the DOJ-OIG a classified protected disclosure, which provided a detailed account of FISA violations involving misuse of FISA warrants to engage in domestic surveillance.

In his unclassified report SA Graham states: "It is the complainant's reasonable belief that the request for ELSUR [electronic surveillance] coverage was a subterfuge to collect evidentiary information concerning public corruption matters." Graham blew the whistle on this illegal behavior, but the actions were covered up by the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's office.

Click here to read the unclassified version of SA Graham's Official Report.

The report filed by SA Graham bolsters another FBI whistleblower's case that became public several months after Graham's official filing with the Justice Department in 2002. Sibel Edmonds, former FBI language specialist, also worked for the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO), and her assignments included the translations of Turkish Counterintelligence documents and audiotapes, some of which were part of espionage investigations led by SA Graham. After she filed her complaint with the DOJ-OIG and Congress, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Court proceedings in Edmonds' case were blocked by the assertion of the state secrets privilege by then Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the Congress gagged and prevented from investigating her case through retroactive re-classification of documents by DOJ. To read the timeline on Edmonds' case Click here.

Edmonds' complaint included allegations of illegal activities by Turkish organizations and their agents in the United States, and the involvement of certain elected and appointed U.S. officials in the Department of State, Pentagon, and the U.S. Congress in these activities.

In its September 2005 issue, Vanity Fair ran a comprehensive piece on Edmonds' case by reporter David Rose, in which several former and current congressional and Justice Department officials identified former House Speaker Dennis Hastert as being involved in illegal activities with the Turkish organizations and personnel targeted in FBI investigations. In addition, Rose reported: " . . . much of what Edmonds reportedly heard seemed to concern not state espionage but criminal activity. There was talk, she told investigators, of laundering the profits of large-scale drug deals and of selling classified military technologies to the highest bidder."

In January 2005, DOJ-OIG released an unclassified summary of its investigation into Edmonds' termination. The report concluded that Edmonds was fired for reporting serious security breaches and misconduct in the agency's translation program, and that many of her allegations were supported by convincing evidence.

Another former veteran FBI counterintelligence and espionage specialist at FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC, also filed similar reports with DOJ-OIG and several congressional offices regarding violations of FISA implementation and the covering up of several espionage cases involving FBI language specialists and public corruption cases by the Bureau. The cases reported by this whistleblower corroborate those reported by SA Graham and Sibel Edmonds.

In an interview with NSWBC investigators the former FBI specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, stated: " . . . you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked the state secrets privilege in Edmonds' case."

William Weaver, NSWBC senior advisor, noted, "These abuses of power are precisely why we must pay attention to whistleblowers. Preservation of the balance of powers between the branches of government increasingly relies on information provided by whistleblowers, especially in the face of aggressive and expanding executive power. Through illegal surveillance, members of Congress and other officials may be controlled by the executive branch, thereby dissolving the matrix of our democracy. The abuse of two powers of secrecy, FISA and the state secrets privilege, are working hand in hand to subvert the Constitution. In an abominably perverse arrangement, the abuse of FISA is being covered up by abuse of the state secrets privilege. Only whistleblowers and the congressional and judicial oversight their revelations spawn can bring our system back into balance."

Several civil liberties and whistleblowers organizations have joined Edmonds and NSWBC in urging Congress to hold public hearing on Edmonds' case, including the supporting cases of SA Graham and other FBI witnesses, and the erroneous use of state secrets privilege by the executive branch to cover up its own illegal conduct. The petition endorsed by these groups is expected to be released to public in the next few days.

© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), founded in August 2004, is an independent and nonpartisan alliance of whistleblowers who have come forward to address our nation's security weaknesses; to inform authorities of security vulnerabilities in our intelligence agencies, at nuclear power plants and weapon facilities, in airports, and at our nation's borders and ports; to uncover government waste, fraud, abuse, and in some cases criminal conduct. The NSWBC is dedicated to aiding national security whistleblowers through a variety of methods, including advocacy of governmental and legal reform, educating the public concerning whistleblowing activity, provision of comfort and fellowship to national security whistleblowers suffering retaliation and other harms, and working with other public interest organizations to affect goals defined in the NSWBC mission statement. For more on NSWBC visit www.nswbc.org.