The cover story in this month’s American Conservative—Pat Buchanan’s paleocon platform—is an interview with whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, a former Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI who has been under Federal gag order for several years. I had a peripheral relationship to the intelligence community many years ago—I consulted for the head of plans at the Reagan NSC, Dr. Norman A. Bailey—and I learned not to get involved with spook stories. There simply is no way that an outsider can pick a path through the wilderness of mirrors without getting hopelessly lost. Edmonds is a geyser of allegations about illegal leaks of US classified documents to foreign governments, including Israel’s. Her American Conservative interviewer Philip Girardi summarizes what she has to say as follows:
So we have a pattern of corruption starting with government officials providing information to foreigners and helping them make contact with other Americans who had valuable information. Some of these officials, like Marc Grossman, were receiving money directly. Others were receiving business favors: Pentagon associates like Doug Feith and Richard Perle had interests in Israel and Turkey.
As noted, I am not going to speculate as to the veracity of Edmonds’ story. We never find out the truth until the archives are opened to future generations—if ever. But whether classified documents were leaked to Israel with the connivance of Bush administration officials who happen to be Jewish is a very small part of Edmonds’ story.
Only in passing, and with no elaboration, is the name of Fetallah Gulen mentioned in the American Conservative account. Gulen is the 68-year-old spiritual leader of an Islamist movement that claims to have branches in 80 countries, and—with the help of Turkey’s Islamist government—controls large parts of the Turkish media. Edmonds’ most astonishing allegation, widely publicized over the past several years, is that the CIA sponsored Gulen in cooperation with Saudi and Pakistani partners as an instrument against Russia and China in Central Asia.
In 2008 Gulen, who live in exile in the United States, was denied a Green Card after a Philadelphia hearing. The secular Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported at the time:
Gülen’s financial resources were detailed in the public prosecutor’s arguments, which claimed that Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Turkish government, and the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA, were behind the Gülen movement. It stated that some businessmen in Ankara donated 10 to 70 percent of their annual income to the movement and that it corresponded to $20,000 to $300,000 per year per person. It added that one businessman in Istanbul donated $4-5 million each year and that young people graduating from Gülen’s schools donated between $2,000 and $5,000 each year.
The Russians have always thought that Gulen was sponsored by CIA, and kicked his organization out of their territory in 2002.
A year ago Edmonds told a Turkish blogger:
You’ve got to look at the big picture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the super powers began to fight over control of Central Asia, particularly the oil and gas wealth, as well as the strategic value of the region.
Given the history, and the distrust of the West, the US realized that it couldn’t get direct control, and therefore would need to use a proxy to gain control quickly and effectively. Turkey was the perfect proxy; a NATO ally and a puppet regime. Turkey shares the same heritage/race as the entire population of Central Asia, the same language (Turkic), the same religion (Sunni Islam), and of course, the strategic location and proximity.
This started more than a decade-long illegal, covert operation in Central Asia by a small group in the US intent on furthering the oil industry and the Military Industrial Complex, using Turkish operatives, Saudi partners and Pakistani allies, furthering this objective in the name of Islam.
This is why I have been saying repeatedly that these illegal covert operations by the Turks and certain US persons dates back to 1996, and involves terrorist activities, narcotics, weapons smuggling and money laundering, converging around the same operations and involving the same actors.
And I want to emphasize that this is “illegal” because most, if not all, of the funding for these operations is not congressionally approved funding, but it comes from illegal activities.
And one last thing, take a look at the people in the State Secrets Privilege Gallery on my website and you will see how these individuals can be traced to the following; Turkey, Central Asia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - and the activities involving these countries.
All this would be an oddity except for the allegation that elements of the US government were in cahoots with the Gulen organization in fomenting rebellion by the ethnic Turks of Xinjiang, the Uyghurs. Last summer’s Uyghur riots were viewed with extreme concern by Beijing. Turkey’s Islamist prime minister Erdogan denounced the Chinese government for “genocide” against the Uyghurs, an remarkably overwrought response.
The group of officials whom Edmonds fingered has less to do with Israel than with promoting an Islamist strategy for the US in central Asia. As the cited Turkish blog reports:
Marc Grossman, former State Department #3 and former Turkish ambassador, and one of the key named individuals in Sibel’s case, is currently receiving $1.2 million per annum from Ihlas Holding, a Gulen-linked Turkish conglomerate. Sibel has previously referred to Ihlas as ‘semi-legitimate’ and ‘alleged shady’ - and emphasized that Grossman’s current payoff is a result of services performed while he was in office.
Grossman’s predecessor as ambassador in Turkey was Morton Abramowitz - in fact, Grossman actually worked under Abramowitz in Ankara for a number of years. During that period, the US opened an espionage investigation into activities at the embassy involving Major Douglas Dickerson, a weapons procurement specialist for Central Asia. Dickerson and his wife, an FBI translator, later became famous when they tried to recruit Sibel to spy for this criminal network.
Abramowitz, who is not listed in Sibel’s State Secrets Privilege Gallery, wrote a letter in support of Gulen for his immigration case. He has long advocated the use of Islamic fighters in furtherance of US interests, including the Afghan mujaheddin against the Soviets and the Kosovo Liberation Army during the war in the Balkans, acting as an advisor to the Kosovar Albanians.
Another player from Sibel’s Gallery is Enver Yusuf Turani - Prime Minister of East Turkistan, a ‘country’ recognized by only one country, the United States. East Turkistan, aka Xinjiang, is officially a part of China, and home to the Uyghur people and the “Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement,” a UN-nominated terrorist organization “funded mainly by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network and received training, support and personnel from both the al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan.” In fact, the Uyghurs constitute a significant percentage of detainees - at least 22 - at Guantanamo Bay since 2001. Five of those have been set free, and were eventually sent to Albania, amid much controversy.
There is deep suspicion in Beijing that some elements of the US government are supporting the efforts of the Gulen movement to destabilize Xinjiang. That is playing with matches near rocket fuel. The one thing Beijing will not tolerate is an effort to sponsor provincial rebellions. That represents an existential threat to China.
The Turkish shift to Islamism and the ascendancy of the Gulen organization in Turkish politics is the last thing that Israel wants. Israel’s longstanding alliance with secular Turkey is in shambles, in a major setback for Israeli foreign policy. The brunt of Edmonds’ allegations involves alleged skullduggery that is profoundly hostile to Israeli interests. Yet Philip Girardi has managed to twist the story into a trivial story about document-peddling to the Israeli embassy.
Again, I do not know the veracity of these allegations, or what the Obama administration presently thinks of such matters. The bulk of Edmonds story refers to former American officials (some of whom happen to have Jewish names, e.g., Morton Abramovitz, and others who do not, e.g., Graham Fuller) who allegedly committed American resources to supporting dangerous Islamists in an attempt to destabilize America’s largest trading partner.
But one thing is certain: the obsessive, paranoid Judeophobia at The American Conservative prompts the magazine to feature allegations of tertiary importance, and ignore what would be (if true) a political scandal of monstrous proportions.
