FAWNING AT THE FEET OF MAMMON

"The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread."
~ John Swinton, NYTimes editor, 1953.

At the moment we are still waiting for an official statement on the Amed (Diyarbakır) bombing from KCK, reference this article. The official investigation by KCK is not complete yet and the leadership has not yet determined exactly what has happened. They feel that they owe it to the Kurdish people to reveal the truth and they plan to do exactly that when the investigation is completed. Out of deep respect for the leadership and all the fighters of the Kurdish freedom movement, I will wait for their official statement.

At the moment, I am following the situation and am bookmarking the pertinent pages and when the moment is right, I will faithfully report what our freedom movement has to say.

In the meantime, there has been much chatter on the Sibel Edmonds case. On the surface, it may seem strange that I have followed Sibel's case and have tried to bring as much of it as possible to the readers of Rastî, but perhaps Hevallo's comments on Luke Ryland's recent post will help to explain why Sibel's case is important for Northern Kurds:

To get to bottom of this 'dirty' relationship is part of the Kurdish struggle for freedom. I have spoken to officials from the Kurdish parties in Turkey about your campaign and they asked me to send their very best wishes and solidarity. I will continue to do everything within my own modest capacity to help.

Sibel's case goes to the heart of the political battle in North Kurdistan because the actors in this sordid chapter of Deep State crime are all complicit in the genocide of the Kurdish people and they should all be exposed no matter where they are--in the US, Turkey, or Israel. This is why Sibel's information should be dispersed as widely as possible, and here are some links for doing just that:


"'Nükleer köstebek' Marc Grossman mı" (For Turkish-language speakers, thanks to Miguel for that link. Believe it or not, it's a Hürriyet article that is actually true to Sibel's story. It summarizes The Sunday Times article well, and also draws from Sibel bloggers, especially Luke Ryland's work. It's a good, complete summary of Sibel's case in Turkish.)

Luke also has a couple of posts to update The Sunday Times: "Media Coverage" and "Facts & Thanks". He also has a link to something Chris Floyd has written.

Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire has a very detailed post here. Remember the guy who, back in 2005, was arrested in Turkey for building bombs he was going to use against Israeli ships? Cannon mentions him in reference to The Times article last November--the article that prompted Sibel to approach The Times with her story. Here's what Cannon has to say:

Sakka and the spooks: I'm still not sure why news reports about this man triggered Edmonds to go into action. But the following may be of interest.

According to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, 2000 was the year when the Americans "turned" Sakka, who received an unspecified (but large) amount of money from the CIA. More than that: He received protection during his time in Turkey -- while he ran those Al Qaeda training camps.

Then came his mysterious sojourn in Germany in 2000-2001. During this period, he appears to have met Atta -- and then he went "underground.

Germany's BND -- their version of the CIA -- aided Sakka while he was on the run. This, despite the fact that Sakka was considered a wanted man in Germany, due to his role in earlier terror plots.

In late 2005, after Sakra’s arrest in Turkey (see July 30, 2005), the German television news show Panorama will report that the German BKA (Federal Office of Criminal Investigation) suspects the German BND (Federal Intelligence Service) to have helped Sakra escape from Germany in late 2001. Supposedly, German police had learned where he was staying in Germany, but the BND enabled him to escape via France to Syria in order to prevent further investigations about him. Panorama will report that Sakra was secretly still working for Syrian intelligence and was giving them information about al-Qaeda’s leadership. Sakra will go on to mastermind a series of suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2003...

We cannot know what Sakka was up to in Syria, but one thing seems clear: Western intelligence placed greater value on his services than on bringing a 9/11 plotter to justice. His protection continued in the face of the 1999 plots, the 9/11 tragedy, and the 2003 bombings. It ended only when he decided to go after Israeli ships.

At his 2005 trial, his lawyer offered an intriguing observation:

Sakra’s lawyer will claim that if Sakra revealed all that he knew, “a few states would collapse.”

This was the guy referred to in The Sunday Times:

She [Edmonds] approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

If the CIA gave the guy money and "turned" him, and if the Ankara regime protected him while he was running al-Qaeda training camps in Turkey, and another American ally, Germany, aided the guy while he was on the lam, does that make him a CIA asset?

Do you find that surprising? You shouldn't. Remember who the real terrorists are.

Lastly, there's a video interview with Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog at INN World Report, discussing Sibel's case. Perhaps the thing that comes across most clearly in the interview is that Friedman notes that the US media has not breathed so much as one syllable of Sibel's case.

I never thought I'd live to say it, but Sibel's case makes me respect Turkish media so much more than American media.

Ax!