INCOMPETENCE OR SOMETHING ELSE?

"I believe that their motive was to sanitize the record and thus prevent the public from understanding the full depth of the FBI/Department of Justice missteps in the years leading up to September 11. So "walls" were intentionally built, and key intelligence was withheld from other agencies, including the CIA and DIA. In any other government enterprise, the consequences might have been more benign but in the realm of national security that compartmentalization of intelligence proved fatal. "
~ Peter Lance.

Seeing as it's 11 September, you might want to go by Sibel Edmond's place and listen to her most recent podcast with investigative journalist Peter Lance. You'll be amazed at the amount of screw-ups that led to the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Now, the question is: Were those screw-ups just your garden variety screw-ups by government or were they something far more sinister?

On the same subject, you might want to take a look at the fifty questions the Asia Times' Pepe Escobar asks on this anniversary. Escobar makes this comment about "whitewash" and a "mythical historical narrative" which ties in well with the Peter Lance interview:

It's useless to expect US corporate media and the ruling elites' political operatives to call for a true, in-depth investigation into the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Whitewash has been the norm. But even establishment highlight Dr Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski, a former national security advisor, has admitted to the US Senate that the post-9/11 "war on terror" is a "mythical historical narrative".

The interview runs just over an hour and it's packed with information. It's not to be missed.

I also have a recent post over there on the Rendon Group's recent antics in Afghanistan.

THE SINEWS OF WAR

"The sinews of war are infinite money."
~ Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Sibel Edmonds revisits the Ralston conflict of interest in her post titled, "Gate-Keepers of the Revolving Doors". She includes a statement from yours truly in which you will learn a little more about the difficulties Hevallo and I faced in trying to get the conflict of interest into the mainstream media (aka: state propaganda organs).

I also mentioned those journalists who did help to spread the news, but you'll have to check Sibel's post to see who they were. Feel free to leave your comments there. I'm sure Sibel would be happy to hear from you.

I am happy to note that the information Hevallo and I dug up is now included in old Joe's Wikipedia page, to his everlasting shame and that of the state propaganda organs that buried the information.

Since I'm on the subject of state propaganda organs, here's something else they "missed" which is extremely interesting about the 9/11 attacks. This is from an interview with a former FEMA videographer who is now living in Argentina under political asylum status:

Kurt Sonnenfeld graduated from the University of Colorado (USA) with studies in International Affairs and Economics, as well as in Literature and Philosophy. He worked for the United States government as official videographer and served as Director of Broadcast Operations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s National Emergency Response Team. Additionally, Kurt Sonnenfeld was contracted by several other governmental agencies and programs for classified and “sensitive” operations at military and scientific installations throughout the United States.

On September 11, 2001, the area known as “Ground Zero” was sealed from the public eye. Sonnenfeld, however, was given unrestricted access enabling him to document for the investigation (that never took place) and provide some “sanitized” pool video to virtually every news network in the world. The tapes that reveal some of the anomalies which he discovered at Ground Zero are still in his possession.

[ . . . ]

Voltaire Network: What are your suspicions based on?

Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower — far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!

[ . . . ]

What happened with Building 7 is incredibly suspicious. I have video that shows how curiously small the rubble pile was, and how the buildings to either side were untouched by Building Seven when it collapsed. It had not been hit by an airplane; it had suffered only minor injuries when the Twin Towers collapsed, and there were only small fires on a couple of floors. There’s no way that building could have imploded the way it did without controlled demolition. Yet the collapse of Building 7 was hardly mentioned by the mainstream media and suspiciously ignored by the 911 Commission.

Voltaire Network: Reportedly, the underground levels of WTC7 contained sensitive and undoubtedly compromising archival material. Did you come across any of it?

Kurt Sonnenfeld: The Secret Service, the Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Office of Emergency Management’s “Crisis Center” occupied huge amounts of space there, spanning several floors of the building. Other federal agencies had offices there as well. After September 11, it was discovered that concealed within Building Seven was the largest clandestine domestic station of the Central Intelligence Agency outside of Washington DC, a base of operations from which to spy on diplomats of the United Nations and to conduct counterterrorism and counterintelligence missions.

There was no underground parking level at Seven World Trade Center. And there was no underground vault. Instead, the federal agencies at Building Seven stored their vehicles, documents and evidence in the building of their associates across the street. Beneath the plaza level of US Customs House (Building 6) was a large underground garage, separated off from the rest of the complex’s underground area and guarded under tight security. This was where the various government services parked their bomb-proofed cars and armored limousines, counterfeit taxi cabs and telephone company trucks used for undercover surveillance and covert operations, specialized vans and other vehicles. Also within that secured parking area was access to the sub-level vault of Building 6.

When the North Tower fell, the US Customs House (Building 6) was crushed and totally incinerated. Much of the underground levels beneath it were also destroyed. But there were voids. And it was into one of those voids, recently uncovered, that I descended with a special Task Force to investigate. It was there we found the security antechamber to the vault, badly damaged. At the far end of the security office was the wide steel door to the vault, a combination code keypad in the cinderblock wall beside it. But the wall was cracked and partially crumbled, and the door was sprung partially open. So we checked inside with our flashlights. Except for several rows of empty shelves, there was nothing in the vault but dust and debris. It had been emptied. Why was it empty? And when could it have been emptied?

Voltaire Network: Is this what set alarm bells ringing for you?

Kurt Sonnenfeld: Yes, but not immediately. With so much chaos, it was difficult to think. It was only after digesting everything that the “alarm bells” went off.

Building Six was evacuated within twelve minutes after the first airplane struck the North Tower. The streets were immediately clogged with fire trucks, police cars and blocked traffic, and the vault was large enough, 15 meters by 15 meters by my estimate, to necessitate at least a big truck to carry out its contents. And after the towers fell and destroyed most of the parking level, a mission to recover the contents of the vault would have been impossible. The vault had to have been emptied before the attack.

I’ve described all of this extensively in my book, and it’s apparent that things of importance were taken out of harm’s way before the attacks. For example, the CIA didn’t seem too concerned about their losses. After the existence of their clandestine office in Building Seven was discovered, an agency spokesman told the newspapers that a special team had been dispatched to scour the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports, though there were millions, if not billions of pages floating in the streets. Nevertheless, the spokesman was confident. “There shouldn’t be too much paper around,” he said.

And Customs at first claimed that everything was destroyed. That the heat was so intense that everything in the evidence safe had been baked to ash. But some months later, they announced that they had broken up a huge Colombian narco-trafficking and money-laundering ring after miraculously recovering crucial evidence from the safe, including surveillance photos and heat-sensitive cassette tapes of monitored calls. And when they moved in to their new building at 1 Penn Plaza in Manhattan, they proudly hung on the lobby wall their Commissioner’s Citation Plaque and their big round US Customs Service ensign, also miraculously recovered, in pristine condition, from their crushed and cremated former office building at the World Trade Center.

Now, the question you have to ask yourself is: Cui bono?

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS

"I love them because they were the only ones who stood up to the Turkish incursion and defended Kurdistan."
~ Goran Faris.

PKK wins hearts and minds in South Kurdistan, from IWPR:

Abdulla Saeed walks to a makeshift tent a few kilometres from his deserted home. He hums a classic Kurdish song as he follows his donkey down a mountainside in northeast Iraq.

Saeed, 61, is ferrying clothes and other essentials to eight members of his family who fled their home following a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, rebels in February.

[ . . . ]

There is no official record of the damage that has occurred in northern Iraq as the result of the ongoing conflicts. However, locals say the recent Turkish incursion damaged dozens of villages in the area.

Around 160 families from six villages in Zharawa district near the Qandil mountains fled the fighting and now live in an improvised camp, according to Azad Hasso, the district head.

Mohammad Muhssin, a local Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, official, said the fighting also uprooted around 150 families from their villages close to the Turkish border in the Amedi area, northeast of the Iraqi Kurdistan capital of Erbil.

Muhssin said five bridges have been destroyed in Amedi. “People from more than 200 villages used those bridges. Now the roads have been cut,” he said.

Villagers said they faced economic hardship as a result of the clashes.

Hassan Wssu Marf, 59, from the village of Razga in the Qandil range, said he left his home several months ago.

"We can't go back to raise our livestock or to take care of our orchards,” he said. “It’s terrible."

Yet despite the damage and suffering caused to civilians, public support for Kurdish rebels – particularly the PKK – remains high.

“They are Kurds and demand their own rights,” said Saeed. “Neither Iran nor Turkey wants [the fighters] along the Iraqi border because [they] prevent them from destabilising Iraq.”

“I want [the PKK] to be victorious,” said Goran Faris, a 25-year-old secondary school teacher in Sulaimaniyah, the largest city in northeastern Iraq.

“I love them because they were the only ones who stood up to the Turkish incursion and defended Kurdistan.”

Interesting . . . it looks like the Christian jihadis (see the freaks in this video) are lending a helping hand to Turkish Islamists:

War makes strange bed fellows, especially in Turkey, where a dispute over creationism vs Darwinism has created an unusual alliance between the country's Islamists and conservative Christians in the US.

Darwin's Theory of Evolution, in layman's terms, proposes that life descended from organisms through "survival of the fittest." Creationism holds that life was created by an all-knowing being, that is, God.

Creationism advocates from the US traveled to Istanbul May 2007 to meet with their counterparts, seeking to galvanize their link in the fight to bring creationism to schools and universities in their respective countries. The meeting was endorsed by Istanbul mayor Kadir Topbas, a member of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

[ . . . ]

The May meeting is part of a growing battle for the hearts and minds of Turkey's youth. In fact, conference organizer Mustafa Akyol told ISN Security Watch, in Turkey the creationism-evolution debate is more extensive than it is anywhere in the world.

Akyol is also a member of the Journalists and Writers Foundation, established by Fethullah Gulen, leader of a wealthy Islamic sect that bears his name, the Gulen Movement. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile after fleeing charges of subverting the state, or more specifically, of attempting to "undermine secularism" in Turkey. After long trial, he was acquitted in 2006 but the case has since been reopened, despite the fact that he is said to actually be in the good graces of the current government.

Gulen has an influential network of TV and newspaper interests in Turkey along with close ties to the government. It is rumored he even has the ear of Turkish President Abdullah Gul.

Gülen has far more than just "the ear of . . . Abdullah Gül". The AKP is run by Fethullacı, and the Fethullacı have been pressing for the same kinds of stupidity as their allies, the Christian Jihadis:

The Gulen Movement, along with other creationist advocates, has been lobbying with increasing success for school textbooks to put creationism on equal footing with Darwinism.

[ . . . ]

The involvement of US Christian groups in Turkey in the battle against Darwinism has a long history. In 1985, the Dallas-based Institute of Creation Research collaborated with the then-Turkish government to introduce creationism into the country's school curriculum.

According to Dr Ozgur Genc, a professor at Bosphorus University and a leading opponent of creationism, its introduction was part of a wider state policy called the "Turkish Islamic synthesis."

The country's military rulers at the time, who had seized power in a 1980 coup, wanted to encourage religion to undermine the then-strong support in the country for left-wing ideas.

It's too bad some of the Deep Staters that have been killing Christians in Turkey can't be turned loose against the Christian jihadis. If such were the case, those two groups could fight it out and we might be able to avoid Dark Ages v.2.

From the Liar-Liar-Pants-On-Fire Department:

Come on, now, Condi . . . we know you're lying. Sibel Edmonds called you out on your "outrageous lie" regarding 9/11:

About two weeks before Condoleezza Rice appeared before the 9/11 Commission she made the statement, "We had no specific information." And I told the press that that was an outrageous lie. That was printed on the front page of The Independent [UK] and several other papers here. And what she did during the hearing was very interesting. She corrected herself saying, "Well, I made a mistake. I should not have said 'we.' I should say that I personally did not have specific information." And that is exactly what I stated. "We" includes the FBI, and therefore I can tell you with 100% certainty that that is an outrageous lie.

CYA as White House National Security Advisor; CYA as Secretary of State. If picked up by McCain as a running mate, CYA as VP.

THE MAN WHO GAVE PAKISTAN THE BOMB

"He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives."
~ Sibel Edmonds.

We have not heard too much from Sibel Edmonds since the end of October, when she let it be known publicly that she was willing to tell the whole story of her work at the FBI and the information she learned from the translations she made--information that would expose and damn the Turkish lobby in the US and that great American work of fiction, The 9/11 Commission Report.

The silence since Sibel's offer to go public has been mainly the result of the chickenshit American media, which continually refuses to show any interest in Truth or in telling a story that requires a bit of mental concentration to understand--no matter how important the story is. So much for the tradition of muckraking.

Until today, anyway.

Britain's The Sunday Times has placed Sibel's story front and center to tell who it was that was involved with selling nuclear secrets to Pakistan:

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, 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.

The name of the official – who has held a series of top government posts – is known to The Sunday Times. He strongly denies the claims.

However, Edmonds said: “He was aiding foreign operatives against US interests by passing them highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

Oh, let me take three nanoseconds of my time to guess who that "well-known senior official in the US State Department" was: Marc Grossman.

Those familiar with the details of the conflict of interest surrounding the State Department's appointment of Lockheed Martin's Joseph Ralston as "PKK coordinator" for Turkey, will remember that Ralston works as a vice-chairman of The Cohen Group. The other vice-chairman of The Cohen Group is Marc Grossman.

The Cohen Group, founded by former Defense Secretary William Cohen--a Clinton appointee--has been involved in nothing but dirty business since its creation, such as its role in the cover-up of Oil-for-Food kickbacks and the Australian Wheat Board. Then, of course, there was the appointment of Ralston as "special envoy" to Turkey to "coordinate" the PKK, even while he was listed as a lobbyist for The Cohen Group in order to export tactical fighter aircraft--and this while maintaining his position as a member of the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin.

So it should come as no surprise that The Cohen Group should attract and employ a major rodent like Grossman.

Marc Grossman climbed his way to the number three position at the State Department during his 29 years at the department, during which time he worked in Turkey and Pakistan. As the US ambassador to Turkey, he supervised the procurement of American military hardware for the Turkish military and the guy who was directly in charge of that procurement was none other than US Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson who, with his wife, MİT operative Melek Can Dickerson, figures prominently in Sibel's story.

Note that Grossman and Dickerson worked together to provide Turkey with American weapons and military training at the height of Turkey's genocidal Dirty War against the Kurdish people, during which time the US provided more weapons to Turkey than it had during all the other combined years of the Cold War.

Grossman has also been seriously implicated in tipping off both the Pakistanis and the Turks as to the true nature of Brewster Jennings, earning him the status of "subject of interest" by US intelligence circles:

"When Beyaz Enerji began to encounter 'consultants' with Brewster Jennings, they expressed an interest to their ATC interlocutors in buying the firm along with other energy consulting companies. In the two phone calls intercepted by the FBI, Grossman told the called parties to 'stay away from Brewster Jennings . . . they're the government . . . they're nothing but a cover.' One of the calls was to a Pakistani Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) top agent in Washington. The other call, bearing an almost identical message, was made to a Northrop Grumman official who was a key player with the ATC. The Northrop Grumman official made a phone call to his ATC handler, stating, 'Our guy warned us off Brewster Jennings.' A U.S. intelligence source stated that 'Grossman's name was all over the FBI wiretaps in 2001.'

"Grossman, who now works for the Cohen Group of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, was, according to U.S. intelligence sources, a subject of interest to counter-intelligence agents since his stint as U.S. ambassador in Ankara."

Then there was Grossman's Pakistan connection:

Ahmed [General Mahmoud], the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?

A better question: Why hasn't the US demanded that Marc Grossman be questioned and tried in court?

Did claims against our "subject of interest" pan out? If not, then why did Grossman resign from the number 3 position at the State Department under cover of darkness--normal activity for rodents--by the beginning of 2005?

Sibel herself put it best:

The second Vice Chairman of Cohen’s firm is Marc Grossman, who was the U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs in the State Department from 2001 until 2005. From November 1994 to June 1997, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In January 2005 Grossman resigned from his position and joined the Cohen Group. In late December 2005, Grossman joined Ihlas Holding, a large and alleged shady Turkish company which is also active in several Central Asian countries. Grossman is reported to receive $100,000 per month for his advisory position with Ihlas.’ Most and foremost, Grossman is known for his extraordinarily cozy relationship with Turkey and Israel; followed by Pakistan.

[ . . . ]

Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005. Within two months after his confident resignation, this boy got the vice chairmanship of the Cohen Group. Only six months later, Grossman ended up securing a ‘special advisory’ position for a foreign company that reported his monthly fee at $100,000 a month. The industrious Grossman seems to be juggling so many balls simultaneously: numerous foreign sponsored dinner speeches, the demanding pimping activities of Cohen’s firm, the very ‘special advising’ of a shady foreign company…

As Sibel noted, that "shady foreign company" is Ihlas Holding, a Fethullacı (i.e. Islamist) business. Obviously Marc Grossman was able to make a very comfortable transition to the private business world because he had made a lot of lucrative connections during his time at the State Department. These connections were his retirement plan, you might say. The fact is also that Grossman didn't cultivate any of his connections for high-minded ideological purposes; he did it for the money and the power.

Let's make it clear what I'm saying here, and what Sibel is saying: Marc Grossman sold nuclear secrets to the Turks, who turned around and sold them to Pakistan. Marc Grossman gave Pakistan The Bomb.

The rodent Grossman is in complete denial, again from today's Sunday Times:

The senior official in the State Department no longer works there. Last week he denied all of Edmonds’s allegations: “If you are calling me to say somebody said that I took money, that’s outrageous . . . I do not have anything to say about such stupid ridiculous things as this.”

But American intelligence types corroborate Sibel's version of the story, just as every official investigation into Sibel's accusations have done:

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

And if Grossman is truly innocent, he won't have anything to hide and, therefore, will not mind a public investigation . . . will he?

By the way, check out this little zinger at the beginning of the article:

She 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.

Let's see now . . . Turkey . . . that would be America's close ally and Model of Democracy for the Middle East, right . . . training 9/11 hijackers in Turkey?

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Americans are so stupid.

For more on Sibel and The Sunday Times, see Luke Ryland's latest post at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak. Also, see Grossman backgrounders:

"Marc Grossman, Man of Mystery".

"Doug Feith, Richard Perle and Marc Grossman"

"Lesser Neocons of L'Affaire Plame"


In order to put faces to names, Sibel has a State Secrets Rogues Photo Gallery. The list of rogues reads as follows, from left to right:


Richard Perle
Douglas Feith
Eric Edelman
Marc Grossman

*****

Brent Scowcroft
Larry Franklin

*****

Dennis Hastert
Roy Blount - ( Republican, Missouri)
Dan Burton - (R - IN)
Tom Lantos - (D- CA)
?
Bob Livingston
Stephen Solarz

*****

Graham Fuller- RAND
David Makovsky - WINEP
Alan Makovsky- WINEP
?
?

*****

Yusuf Turani (President, Turkistan)
Professor Sabri Sayari (Georgetown, WINEP)
Mehmet Eymur (Turkish MIT)


UPDATE: Luke has a post with the photos of the guilty. Take a look and read the comments.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

"Condoleezza Rice testified this morning before the 9/11 commission. Or as they're calling it in Washington — 'The Passion of the Rice'. ... She did a great job. It is not easy raising your right hand while you're trying to cover your ass at the same time."
~ Jay Leno.

Thanks, Anonymous.

And there are interesting things coming out in the media about General Petreaus (dubbed "General Betray-Us" in certain sections of the US media) from what passes for both Left and Right in American politics. The article from the Right mentions the internal Pentagon report that "differs significantly" from Petraeus' dog-and-pony show in Congress.

Of course, Petraeus' record was reviewed on Rastì months ago . . . like in January.

CLASHES IN TURKISH-OCCUPIED KURDISTAN

"When a woman leaves her home and picks up a rifle it is no small thing -- it is a social revolution."
~ Arshem Kurman, PKK Guerrilla.

YJA-STAR began last week to prepare for new Turkish President Abdullah Gul's visit to Turkish-occupied Kurdistan, with clashes last week resulting in the deaths of 22 Turkish soldiers.

On 6 September, there was a clash between the Kurdish women gerîlas of YJA-STAR and TSK in the Culemêrg (Hakkâri) region. YJA-STAR forces attacked a TSK convoy travelling from Çelê (Çukurca) to Culemêrg. Ten Turkish soldiers were killed and a TSK lieutenant colonel wounded in the attack. On the same day, YJA-STAR forces attacked a convoy between Şinê and Dawişê, killing 3 Turkish soldiers.

TSK began major operations, with the support of 12 helicopters, in the Beytüşşebap area--including Mezra Marinos, Çelecengê, Meydan Zengilê, Faraşin, and Paganê--where it lost three troops to the gerîlas.

On 7 September, in the Şêx Cuma area of Bedlîs (Bitlis), there was a clash between the gerîlas and a convoy of TSKers traveling to join operations. Three soldiers were killed and six wounded. TSK responded with bombardment that began some fires.

On 8 September, gerîlas clashed with 30 Turkish soldiers in the areas of Kato Jirka, Meydan Casusê, Aqir, and Deriyê Baqê, in Şirnex (Şirnak). Three soldiers were killed and an additional number wounded.

Major operations are underway in Silopî, Şirnex, including Mount Cûdî. Units involved with the fighting include Village Guards and Jandarma special teams. There are also operations in the Diyadin area of Agirî (Ağrı) and in Êlih (Batman).

Hevallo has a link to a pretty good article on September 11 by Orhan Pamuk and Lukery has an excellent article on September 11 from Sibel Edmonds' perspective. It cuts to the chase and outlines who the real culprits are.

When Condi Rice made the claim that the administration had no idea anyone would ever think of flying airplanes into buildings, it was Sibel Edmonds who called her out and said that Rice's claim was an "outrageous lie".

That's something to think about tomorrow.