MONDAY'S NEWS AND THEN SOME

"Congress could do a good job theoretically, but it can't. Why? It's owned lock, stock, and barrel by Corporate America."
~ Mike Gravel, former US Senator (D-AK).

Oh, you have to see the photos Hevallo has up from the protest against war criminal Yaşar Büyükanıt, in London on Sunday. I'll post one here as a teaser:




Isn't that great?! Go take a look at the rest. Big kudos to Hevallo and all those in the UK who helped to expose the Turkish Pinochet! Now expect some big Turkish military operations in the near future because, as a friend noted, trips by the Paşas to the UK tend to precede big operations. Credit where credit is due, after all. It was the British who cooked up the Gladio program. I mean, who else would come up with such a stupid Latin name for terrorism? The sows who populate the British government think they are such classicists.

Perhaps the biggest news on Sibel's news from yesterday's Sunday Times article on the FBI's cover-up of evidence against the Deep State in the US, is the commentary on the US media by Daniel Ellsberg. He's the guy who leaked the Pentagon's top-secret, in-house study of how the US government was making decisions on the Vietnam War--during the Vietnam War. This study became known as the Pentagon Papers. Here's a little backgrounder on the release of the Pentagon Papers, from Wikipedia:

Because he held an extremely high-level security clearance, Ellsberg was one of the very few individuals who were given access to the complete set of documents. They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war would not likely be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed that high-ranking officials had a deep cynicism towards the public as well as disregard for the loss of life and injury suffered by soldiers and civilians.

Ellsberg was appalled by the cynicism and hypocrisy reflected in these papers, and, after a period of soul-searching, became determined to make their contents public. He knew that releasing the papers violated the trust placed in him by his colleagues, would damage reputations and would most likely result in his conviction and a lengthy prison sentence.

[ . . . ]

Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators — among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war — to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on-the-record before the Senate.

When these efforts came to naught, Ellsberg finally leaked the documents to New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan. On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the Times published the first installment of the 7,000 page document.

Obviously, Ellsberg has some experience in the matter of releasing classified materials to the American public, which makes him the best expert to comment on Sibel Edmonds' story and to blast the mainstream American media for its complicity in the cover-up of Sibel's story. From The Brad Blog:

In support of the official cover-up, various American journalists in the last weeks have reportedly received calls from "intelligence sources" hinting that "what Sibel Edmonds stumbled onto" is not a rogue operation by American officials and Congressmen working to their own advantage --- as believed by Edmonds and some other former or active FBI officials --- but a sensitive covert operation authorized at high levels. If there is any truth to that, we clearly have another prize candidate --- giving us, as blowback, the Pakistani Bomb and nuclear sales --- in the category of "worst covert operation in U.S. history," rivaling such contenders as the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra, and the secret CIA torture camps abroad.

In the first two of those, the American press gullibly responded to official warnings of "sensitivity" and sat on information they should have reported (as did the New York Times, for a year, on the illegal NSA surveillance program). If the Washington Post had heeded such warnings and demands with respect to the covert torture camps, they would have missed a well-earned Pulitzer Prize and the camps would still be torturing.

Many, if not most, covert operations deserve to be disclosed by a free press. They are often covert not only because they are illegal but because they are wildly ill-conceived and reckless. "Sensitive" and "covert" are often synonyms for "half-assed," "idiotic," and "dangerous to national security," as well as "criminal." All of these would apply to the pattern of activities revealed by Edmonds if it were truly presidentially authorized, as is being whispered. Such activities persist, covertly, to the point of national disaster because the press neglects what our First Amendment was precisely intended to protect and encourage it to do: expose wrongdoing by officials.

Ellsberg asks if the mainstream American media would publish the Pentagon Papers today. I doubt very much that they would. The chickenshit American media is nothing more than a propaganda tool to "manufacture consent" for Corporate America. Remember, Sibel offered her story to the chickenshit American media way back in October 2007 and nothing happened. NOTHING.

All of this nonsense from the manufacturers of consent in the chickenshit American meida about Sibel stumbling onto some "rogue" operation is just that--NONSENSE. Anyone who knows anything about how the Turkish state works, or about Susurluk and hundreds of other Turkish scandals, or Sibel's posting of Mehmet Eymür's photo in her "Most Wanted" gallery, or the Turkish Dirty War against the Kurdish people--anyone who knows these facts also knows, without a shadow of any doubt that what Sibel says about the Deep State in the US is pure truth.

Luke also has a post up on Ellsberg's reaction, and he asks the following:

As an aside, where are the major bloggers on this story? They justifiably criticize journalists for being stenographers, and they justifiably criticize journalists for delaying stories like such as the New York Times withholding the illegal spying story for a year. Where are they on this story? It's time to step up, people.

Luke's absolutely correct; major bloggers have done as excellent a job as the chickenshit American media in avoiding exposure of the Deep State in the US. And if the FBI has destroyed the evidence connected to Sibel's claims and translation work, then things are even worse. The guilty should be strung up publicly.

Don't miss Luke's interview today with Scott Horton on Antiwar Radio (run time about 45 minutes). Luke got up at 4:30 in the morning to talk about Sibel, so honor his sacrifice and listen.

Now, it's been noted before that the criminals associated with Sibel's story come from both the Demopublicans and the Republicrats. In other words, the Deep State in the US is completely bi-partisan and, since this is an election year in the US, I wouldn't want anyone to think that their vote meant a damned thing. In that vein, check out a video interview with former senator, Mike Gravel (D-AK), brought to my attention by the The Saker and reposted here. Let me add, too, that Gravel was the only Senator to enter a large portion of the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record of his subcommittee back in 1971:

Seriously, the best thing that could possibly happen to the US would be the reinstatement of the draft.