It is fair to say that whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has not had a good run in the mainstream media. Admittedly complementary to her, I can find only one reference in The New York Times.
She began as a contract translator in Turkish, Persian and Azerbaijani for the FBI following 11 September 2001. She was not working for the FBI long but she seems to have found out a lot. I suppose that translators get to read the documents that are denied to others. She has made a film, directed by two Frenchmen called, Killing the Messenger, and has a blog, 123 Real Change.
Sibel Edmonds qualifies her continuing revelations, eight years later, by asserting that she only speaks about those things she has direct knowledge. Muriel Kane has an article in The Raw Story. I cannot validate what is alleged, except to observe that I am surprised by the alleged involvement of the FBI in what it would seem should be CIA operations.
According to the article, Sibel Edmonds alleges that the “intimate relationship” with al Qaeda and the Taliban was continued beyond the collapse of the Soviet Union and their military withdrawal from Afghanistan until the events of 911. She alleges that the oil companies and the Pentagon have had long term plans and activities involving Central Asia. The latest running of the “great game” preceded the failed attempt to assassinate bin Laden and has now been revived by Obama, seeking increased military support from both Australia and New Zealand. Turkey is a key player because of the linguistic and religious ties with the people of Central Asia.
Part of the overt purpose of the Afganistan campaign of violence and murder is eradicate the opium trade, and the continuation of the long civil warfare in that country. The implicit accusation here is that the infrastructure has in part established by US agencies. Muriel Kane writes:
Another anomaly of US policy in the region has to do with the heroin trade. The US is known to have supported drug-trafficking Islamic terrorists in many countries of the region, including Chechnya, Kosovo, and Bosnia. It has also been allied with governments in Central Asia which has been strongly linked to the drug trade, such as Uzbekistan.
The extent of al Qaeda’s role in the Afghan heroin trade is a matter of dispute, but as Ryland suggests, there is no question that al Qaeda was supporting many of the same drug-trafficking groups as the US — a situation in sharp contrast with the usual assumption that the United States and al Qaeda were deadly enemies even prior to 9/11.
Edmonds latest remarks appear intended to draw fresh attention to these anomalies, as well as the role played by Enron and other Western oil companies and weapons suppliers in Central Asia in the 1990s.
If there is not a credible alternative explanation, the suggested official propaganda line that the continuing civil war in Afghanistan is critical to the attempt by Western countries to counter terrorism beggars belief. The training camps in Afghanistan were conducted by fellow Muslims to the Taliban Government in Kabul to fight against the Northern Alliance, which ultimately prevailed with American support. However, this contradiction to the narrative presented by Sibel Edmonds is recognized or explained in the accounts and interviews I have read.
Who is to say, just because the British Empire failed, that the Great Game cannot be won. Then again as far as the Military Industrial Complex is concerned any casus belli will do. The question as Chalmers Johnson asking is the looming one whether success will come before insolvency. The MIC it seems does not do cost/benefit analysis. They are beyond such considerations. We shall see.
Secrecy and accountability are inconsistent. Accountability is an inherent principle of representative democratic government. The conclusion is self evident as it is challenging in the contemporary world of subterfuge and perpetual war.