CNN commentator Roland S. Martin has a piece up today (July 22) entitled, Obama birth issue is nutty that proceeds to make good fun of the wingnuts. But since one of George W. Bush’s first serious actions as President after 9-11 was to arrange the biggest government overhaul since the New Deal – by inventing the so-called “Department of Homeland Security” – there are Americans out in the hinterland who are suddenly quite confused about their legal status. I’m one of them, and so is recent Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. Who, like me, actually wasn’t born in the United States of America.

McCain, like me, was a Navy brat. He was born in the Panama Canal Zone, I was born in the Philippines. There used to be a clear law on the books that held the children of American citizens born in a foreign country are indeed ‘natural born’ American citizens, even if they automatically get dual citizenship for the country in which they were born. I had that until I was 18, though after that I would have had to formalize, and I was never very fond of Ferdinand and Imelda “Shoe-Lady” Marcos. So I let it slide. Still, if nobody questioned McCain’s citizenship qualification for POTUS, the fervor with which wingnuttia rants about Obama seems even crazier. I mean, even if Hawaii hadn’t been a state when he was born, did not all Hawaiians receive automatic citizenship when it WAS made a state? It was a territory, after all. Like Puerto Rico. Which apparently some wingnuts in Congress think is a foreign country too, thus Judge Sonia Sotomayor couldn’t be a citizen. Weird.

The last day job I held was in the period after 9-11 when DHS became the designated troublemaker for Americans of all kinds. My problems started when Human Resources was informed that my birth certificate didn’t qualify as “proof of citizenship” for me to have gotten the job. So I responded that my state driver’s license and Social Security card should suffice if HR couldn’t manage to read the line that designated US citizenship for both my parents and myself on that Philippine-issued birth certificate. They told me I had to get a birth certificate from a state here in the US. So I asked them which state they’d suggest I pretend to be born in, thinking there must be a racket in California or somewhere that provides fake birth certificates for people like me who weren’t actually born there. They were not amused.

Then they found a “discrepency” on my Social Security card. Seems I had used the name I’ve always gone by in addition to the first name on my birth certificate, when I had the last name changed after I got married back in 1969. I was informed they could no longer make my pay checks out to my legal name (which WAS on the card), and which is the name on my bank account. The bank then proceeded to tell me it couldn’t cash my checks! I was informed I’d have to take unpaid time off work – for which I’d get in trouble because no one would approve it – to stand in line at the SS office to have the name changed again. So I could work. I began to get the very strong feeling they didn’t want me there.

So I wrote a nice missive to HR telling them that I’d been paying taxes for more than 35 years under the NUMBER on my SS card, and that the IRS – a duly authorized agency of the federal government – had never once complained or refused my money. I further wrote that when I got married, I had my named changed to his on that card, and nobody ever asked to see a court order or required me to get one that “legally” changed my last name. In fact, I had dropped my given middle name entirely and used the first initial of my original last name on all legal matters from that time on. Also a CUSTOM, not something for which I ever had to go to court. I further said that if I were to be required per DHS’s audit to legally change my name, they were going to have to go after every single married woman in the country who had ever taken her husband’s name or used their maiden name’s initial for their middle. That’s about 55% of the entire population, not something this nation had the money to accomplish while spending $10 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I did end up quitting that job just because I know when I’m not wanted. Now write full time freelance, and my boss has never asked me to prove I’m a citizen or argued with me about what name I care to attach. Oh… and he uses direct deposit to pay me, in the account with my terrorist name attached.

I call it my “terrorist” name because DHS was supposed to be chasing terrorists, not messing up the lives and livelihoods of lifelong American citizens and taxpayers in good standing. Thus they must have believed I’m some sort of terrorist. I prefer the title “Terrierist,” since I’m quite fond of small dogs. You’d think these folks would have better things to do in the wake of 9-11, perhaps going after real terrorists or something. Guess that’s what I get for thinking.

I presume these crazy wingnuts would be doing this same weird Dervish Dance if John McCain were President right now. I mean, he absolutely wasn’t born in the United States, while Barack Obama absolutely was. And while they’re at it, they should make a new law that says the wives of military officers stationed overseas are forbidden to visit them or live with them, on the off-chance a baby might be born somewhere outside of Kansas. Sheesh!

Most of these idiots are so dumb and so ill-educated that they can’t even find California on a map, much less Panama or Philippines or Iraq. Why are they being given time and attention in the media? Shouldn’t we be ashamed of the morons among us, the fact that they represent a good 20% of our population? Is that inbreeding, environmental toxins, or just insane?

Whatever it is, I’m glad I’m not one of them. And I think there should be an IQ test administered to all employees of the Department of Homeland Security to ensure we don’t have to actually deal with any of these defectives in our day-to-day lives.

While both houses of the U.S. Congress are busily debating whether or not possible investigations of the Bush administration’s policies on the torture of prisoners and detainees in its wars on terror, Iraq and Afghanistan should be held at all, and if held whether or not they should be public, California Senator Diane Feinstein has managed to forestall the public possibility for a year. Democrat Feinstein and Republican Kit Bond of Missouri as chair and co-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee announced on March 5 a Committee review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program.

The probe is designed to discover new information about the origins of the programs as well as to scrutinize their operations. The five specified areas of investigation include:

• The creation, operation and maintenance of the CIA interrogation program.

• How detainees were assessed as to who possessed information valuable enough to require “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

• Whether the Intelligence Committee, Office of Legal Counsel and other responsible offices of government received accurate information from the CIA about its detention and interrogation programs.

• Whether the programs were implemented in compliance with guidance issued by the pertinent government offices.

• Whether information gained through the programs was valuable enough to justify the programs themselves.

The Obama administration is conducting its own concurrent review in-house. Such closed-door investigations may or may not lead to more open examinations, and there is the possibility that immunity granted to witnesses in these non-public reviews may interfere with any future public testimony and/or prosecutions that proceed from violations of law if those are determined to have occurred.

It would appear that the “move forward” attitude of the new administration and among enablers in Congress in light of revelations coming out via Bush administration memos and documents ordered to be released by judicial review requires some behind-the-scenes machinations to ensure that public disclosure cannot lead to criminal prosecutions or public disclosure of some of the worst abuses in programs the public already knows from sickening photographs and documents already released went well beyond rational justification and the few “bad apples” on the lower tiers thus far prosecuted for prisoner abuses.

Public pressure for the appointment of a special prosecutor is quickly gaining momentum. In the past independent investigations for prosecution have been conducted before or concurrently with Congressional investigations so as to minimize the impact of immunity granted to witnesses or possible defendants. By insisting that the secret investigations precede any possible public ones it is practically a foregone conclusion that the public will never see justice done for any violations of law the public is also not allowed to know about.

No wonder people are becoming seriously jaded about politics and politicians in this country.

Links:

Senate panel starts inquiry into CIA interrogation program
Feinstein, Bond Announce Intelligence Committee Review of CIA Detention and Interrogation Program
Senate to investigate CIA’s actions under Bush

Yahoo News reported: White House unveils intelligence powers overhaul.

“Unveils?” Is this some sort of proposal? Nope. It’s a done deal, no oversight or even prior notice required…

The action by Bush provoked bipartisan anger among House of Representatives lawmakers who said they were not properly consulted or briefed on the planned changes.

“We were only shown the document after it was complete and on its way to the president for his signature,” said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Texas Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee.

“Given the impact that this order will have on America’s intelligence community, and this committee’s responsibility to oversee intelligence activities, this cannot be seen as anything other than an attempt to undercut congressional oversight,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the panel.

So. What exactly does this done deal include? Over at AFP the story is entitled: Bush orders overhaul of US intelligence. But don’t bother, it’s mostly a pro-fluff piece. Better is the offering by Raw Story: Watchdog: Bush turning intelligence agencies on Americans…

“This kind of concentrated power, exercised in secret, is a lit fuse with our Constitution likely in danger of being burned,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

Another interesting analysis appears in cskendrick’s DKos diary, Who Needs Congress? Bush Reorgs Intel Services by Decree. The logical next question for any citizen concerned about civil liberties, the US Constitution, and things like the orderly transfer of power to the next duly elected President is,

Are they doing this for Barack Obama’s benefit?

P.S. Check out Pulitzer winning journalist Seymour Hersh’s report in the New Yorker (analyzed at Think Progress) about how VP Dick Cheney proposed a “false flag” operation to provoke war with Iran To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal to Dress Up Navy Seals as Iranians and Shoot at Them. Is it likely these guys are tired of All The Power In The World yet?

As an early Edwards supporter strong on health care, I considered the erstwhile “frontrunner” [Hillary Clinton] to be well to the right-center of me. As Obama’s star rose, I investigated and found him well to the right-center of me too. I was going for the populist, not The Machine or The Inspiration. Because after all the harm the Bushies have done over nearly eight years, Democrats have proven themselves cowards over and over and over again. Even after 2006. We needed, thought I, someone who understands reality in America, not just for the top 2%.

Sometimes I think we need a third party, to represent those of us who self-identify as ‘progressive’. But I’ve seen too many split-party tactics in my time, and I’m not sure at all that the US can handle more than two parties sans a representative form of parliamentary government. We’re just not equipped for it. Yet the Constitution is the only thing still standing between me and Big Brother. I’m not willing to give up on it now.

Which brings me around to the current presumptive front-runner, Barack Obama. And his odd vote on the FISA bill, complete with expansion of powers and retroactive immunity for breaking the law for the telecoms who were blackmailed into cooperating with illegal wiretaps.

The country’s just not in THAT much danger. I’m not plotting terrorist attacks when I talk to my relatives or friends on the phone. But I damn sure don’t want the NSA listening to everything I say! Or logging all my text messages. Or reading all my emails. I believe it’s a complete waste of resources electronic and human. I am not a threat. The time, money, energy and storage space they waste on me talking to my 85-year old Mother-in-Law or giving hubby a grocery list on his way home from work is wasted EVERYTHING.

Hard earned by somebody, not just me, then given to the government under duress, to be wasted on crap like this. I’m sick of it. I don’t feel safer because they search random 55-year old schoolteachers at the airport. I don’t feel safer because they won’t let me fly (have unpaid traffic ticket). I don’t feel safer because they pay someone more money than I make to do nothing other than listen in on all my private communications with my friends and family, and all those “My Name Is Bob” Punjabis that call innumerable times of the day to collect bills or sell me something I don’t want.

I want the government to understand what the threat is, so when they try to scare me they’re not trying to make me afraid of my next-door neighbor for no reason. Or afraid of my friends. Or my family. Or “My Name Is Bob” in Bangalore. Or myself. I am not a terrorist. I know what Arab terrorists look like. Even when they’re wearing regular clothes. I know they’ve a certain background profile and are usually here on visa. They don’t look like 55-year old-lady schoolteachers or some random business-class regular whose name isn’t on the company credit card (I HATE that commercial!).

Then I want the government to target the threat. If my government is more frightened of me than Al Queda, maybe we should all be asking ourselves why that’s so. The answer might not please us, but it might tell us something we need to know.

I was born and raised in the military (US Navy). My Dad spent 27 years in service as an officer (we called him Commander). I married military (US Navy, nuclear submarine service). I have a son and nephew in the current wars too. I grew up with the firm understanding – as part of my environmental patriotism – that America was not just the Land of the Free. It was, even moreso, the Home of the Brave.

What ever happened to that? Didn’t it have to go away before the whole Land of the Free thing got trashed?

This is the week of the 4th of July. America’s Own Holiday. Mr. Obama, you’re wrong on this FISA bill. It doesn’t matter if you vote on the ‘losing’ side, if you’re President come January. Stand to! Because either way, this legislation is designed to haunt the future. You get to decide how you’d like that haunting to go. Fix what Bush and the Wimps did to us (we’ll insist), or start out as a certifiable autocrat. You’ll lose a lot on that account.

The liberty we’d reserve to ourselves here isn’t worth the cost if you flip us off, honest. I, for one, am not afraid. I’ll die of something someday, it matters more to me how I LIVE. I will not surrender my freedom lightly because you’re afraid of me. No More Cowards.

The full text of the letter is below the fold:

April 3, 2008

The Honorable Michael Mukasey ?Attorney General of the United States ?U.S. Department of Justice ?950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW ?Washington, DC 20530

Dear Mr. Attorney General:

We are writing about two disturbing recent revelations concerning the actions and inactions by the Department of Justice and the federal government to combat terrorism. These include a public statement by you that appears to suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the federal government’s existing surveillance authority to combat terrorism, as well as possible malfeasance by the government prior to 9/11, and the partial disclosure of the contents of a secret Department memorandum concerning Executive Branch authority to combat terrorism, which has been previously requested to be provided to Congress. We ask that you promptly provide that memorandum and that you clarify your public statement in accordance with the questions below.

First, according to press reports, in response to questions at a March 27 speech, you defended Administration wiretapping programs and proposals to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by referring to a pre-9/11 incident. Before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, you stated, “we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went. You’ve got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn’t come home, to show for that.”1

This statement is very disturbing for several reasons. Initially, despite extensive inquiries after 9/11, I am aware of no previous reference, in the 9/11 Commission report or elsewhere, to a call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States which, if it had been intercepted, could have helped prevent the 9/11 attacks. In addition, if the Administration had known of such communications from suspected terrorists, they could and should have been intercepted based on existing FISA law. For example, even assuming that a FISA warrant was required to intercept such calls, as of 9/11 FISA specifically authorized such surveillance on an emergency basis without a warrant for a 48 hour period.2 If such calls were known about and not intercepted, serious additional concerns would be raised about the government’s failure to take appropriate action before 9/11.

Accordingly, we ask that you promptly answer the following questions:

1. Were you referring to an actual pre-9/11 incident in the portion of your statement quoted above? If not, what were you referring to?

2. Do you believe that a FISA warrant would have been required to intercept a telephone call from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States in 2001? If so, please explain.

3. Even assuming that such a warrant would have been required, do you agree that even before 9/11, FISA authorized emergency interception without a warrant for a 48-hour period of phone calls from a known terrorist safe house in Afghanistan to the United States?

4. Assuming that you were referring to an actual pre-9/11 incident in your statement, please explain why such phone calls were not intercepted and appropriately utilized by federal government authorities in seeking to prevent terrorist attacks.

Second, in the March, 2003 Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memorandum publicly released on April 1, 2008, the contents of a secret October, 2001 OLC memorandum were partially disclosed. Specifically, the 2003 memorandum explains that in an October 23, 2001 memorandum, OLC “concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.”3 On two prior occasions – in letters of February 12 and February 20, 2008, – Chairman Conyers requested that the Administration publicly release the October 23, 2001, memorandum .4 The memorandum has not been received despite these specific requests.

Based on the title of the October 23, 2001 memorandum, and based on what has been disclosed and the contents of similar memoranda issued at roughly the same time, it is clear that a substantial portion of this memorandum provides a legal analysis and conclusions as to the nature and scope of the Presidential Commander in Chief power to accomplish specific acts within the United States. The people of the United States are entitled to know the Justice Department’s interpretation of the President’s constitutional powers to wage war in the United States. There can be no actual basis in national security for keeping secret the remainder of a legal memorandum that addresses this issue of Constitutional interpretation. The notion that the President can claim to operate under “secret” powers known only to the President and a select few subordinates is antithetical to the core principles of this democracy. We ask that you promptly release the October 23, 2001, memorandum.

Please provide your responses and direct any questions to the Judiciary Committee office, 2138 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 (tel:202-225-3951; fax: 202-225-7680). Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr. ?Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary

Jerrold Nadler ?Chairman, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Robert C. “Bobby” Scott ?Chairman, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security

Of course, sternly worded letters are not very impressive in DC these days, given that the Bush administration regularly ignores any and all demands from Congress for information. The ‘Unitary Executive’ policy that Dick Cheney has worked so hard to institute for so many decades does not have room for a Constitutional separation of powers or any respect for the Congressional duty of oversight.

I predict Mukasey will ignore this demand as well, and that Bush will assert presidential privilege to prevent him from talking to the Judiciary Committee. But at least We the People can see that some members of Congress still take their oaths and jobs seriously, which is a hopeful sign for the future. Or maybe it’s all just for show.

Our ever-vigilant U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey committed a major faux-pas last week when trying to work up some crocodile tears during a speech touting “necessary” domestic spying in San Francisco. Attempting to blame a lack of power-to-spy for the 3,000 American fatalities on September 11, 2001, Mukasey revealed…

Officials “shouldn’t need a warrant when somebody with a phone in Iraq picks up a phone and calls somebody in the United States because that’s the call that we really want to know about. And before 9-11, that’s the call we didn’t know about. We knew that there was a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn’t know precisely where it went.”

Holy Moley, Batman!!! Did the AG just tell us something nobody in the BushCo administration bothered to tell the 9-11 Commission during its investigation? That US officials KNEW of a call from an Al Queda “safe house” in Afghanistan to someone in the United States, but didn’t listen in because they were scared of breaking the law?

Is Mukasey trying to tell us that US intelligence agencies – including NSA who monitors virtually ALL telecommunications, and the CIA who knows where Al Queda’s “safe houses” are – have no understanding of the FISA law that has been on the books since 1978? What in the world DO they teach these spooks at training camp?

Fact of the matter is that not only does FISA (and other intelligence rules and regulations) allow tapping of the Afghanistan phone line, it allows – and has always allowed – immediate surveillance of the call on both ends, including the receiver here in the states for a full 72 hours without any kind of warrant! All they had to do was listen in, and if it were about planning the terrorist acts on 9-11, take it to the FISA court, get the warrant retroactively, and all the evidence recorded is usable in court against the plotters. Heck, they could have listened in anyway to the U.S. receiver and never bothered with a warrant, they just couldn’t use that tap as evidence in court later on (presuming they bust the perps instead of simply take ‘em out).

Writer and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald has been on top of the story. Says Greenwald in his latest post…

“Yesterday, I contacted Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman, to ask him whether the Commission was ever told about Mukasey’s alleged Afghan Terrorist 9/11-planning telephone calls and/or the Bush administration’s failure/inability to eavesdrop on such calls. Hamilton refused to comment, first claiming that he was in meetings all day yesterday and had no time to talk to me. When asked if he would comment today or whenever he had the time, he said he was not going to comment on this ever, since he had not read Mukasey’s speech. Calls to 9/11 Executive Director Philip Kelikow seeking comment were not returned and 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean could not yet be reached.”

I think the situation is fairly obvious. Either Mukasey is flat-out lying in order to promote BushCo’s unwarranted power grab and declaration of retroactive immunity for illegal domestic spying, or BushCo knows a lot more about what happened on 9-11 (and who was involved, before the act) than they were willing to tell the American people or the duly constituted and empowered investigation of those events.

Greenwald’s update on the story cites 9-11 Commission Executive Director Philip Kelikow as dismissing Mukasey’s revelation as immaterial to the investigation. Apparently he just made it up on the spot to gain sympathy for retroactive immunity and expanded spying powers.

How willing are we to buy that excuse?

Links:

Michael Mukasey’s tearful lies
Priorities

Senator Chris Dodd made a statement on the Senate floor on Friday, January 25th during the cloture debate on Bush’s FISA bill – the one granting retroactive immunity to America’s telecom giants for aiding and abetting Bushco’s rampant lawbreaking. The statement well explains what’s wrong with the entire situation in which we find ourselves after 7 long years of the decidedly un-American “Unitary Executive” – a.k.a. “The Deciderer.”

Dodd had threatened to filibuster the bill last month, so Harry Reid was forced to withdraw it from debate until last Friday, when Dodd again threatened filibuster. Reid then put off the cloture vote until today, January 28th. Senators Clinton and Obama, who were out of town campaigning in South Carolina on Friday, are scheduled to be present for this afternoon’s cloture vote (and filibuster, should that ensue).

Dodd noted that it wasn’t his colleagues in Congress – either house – who convinced him of the unacceptability of telecom immunity, it was the many citizens he met in his recently aborted campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination…

For several months now, I’ve listened to the building frustration over this immunity and this administration’s campaign of lawlessness. I’ve seen it in person, in mail, online – the passion and eloquence of citizens who are just fed up. They’ve inspired me more than they know.

In his impassioned speech, Dodd ran down the list of reasons why it’s important to stop this attempt to cover-up lawbreaking by the administration and its corporate enablers, and get the issues into the federal court system where they belong – and will be public. He echoes themes we’ve seen before…

Because this is about far more than the telecoms. This is about the choice that will define America: the rule of law, or the rule of men.

It’s about this government’s practice of waterboarding, a technique invented by the Spanish Inquisition, perfected by the Khmer Rouge, and in between, banned – originally banned for excessive cruelty – by the Gestapo!

It’s about the Military Commissions Act, a bill that gave President Bush the power to designate any individual he wants an “unlawful enemy combatant,” hold him indefinitely, and take away his right to habeas corpus – the 900-year-old right to challenge your detention.

It’s about the CIA destroying evidence of harsh interrogation – or, as some would call it, torture.

It’s about Dick Cheney raising secrecy to an art form.

[...] It’s about the Justice Department turning our nation’s highest law enforcement offices into patronage plums, and turning the impartial work of indictments and trials into the machinations of politics.

It’s about Alberto Gonzales coming before Congress to give us testimony that was a best wrong and at worst perjury.

It’s about Michael Mukasey coming before the Senate and defending the president’s power to openly break the law.

It’s about extraordinary renditions and secret prisons…

Whoa. Quite the list! I can remember when Richard Nixon resigned rather than try to defend his involvement in the cover-up of a “third-rate burglary.” Heck, I can remember when the only reason Ronald Reagan didn’t get impeached for giving high-powered weaponry to Iran and running drugs and death squads in Central America was because the lovable old Gipper was obviously suffering the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

…and I can remember an 8-year torch and pitchfork battle to impeach the most popular president in my lifetime for getting a blow job. Shrub has so corrupted this government and slimed the office of the Presidency that it’s hard to imagine how America can recover. George Bush and his puppets in the Congress (including more than a handful of culpable Democrats) are trying hard to ensure that America never recovers. They want us destroyed – much more thoroughly than Osama bin Laden could ever hope for.

Just as the nefarious threads of Sibel Edmonds’ revelations span decades, name the already well-known players, and establish a long-term program of illegal nuclear proliferation involving high level officials in the Pentagon, State Department, Congress and the Bush administration, the many violations of US and international law related to illegal spying on citizens as well as blatant abrogation of the Constitution are all of a set. They are dots that tell a sordid tale if they can be connected.

You go, Senator Dodd! Connect those dots, filibuster those criminals and creeps, be a true patriot and help save this country from power-mad traitors! I’ve contacted my Senators about voting ‘No’ on FISA cloture. Have you contacted yours?

Links:

Statement of Senator Dodd on FISA Telecom Immunity

WaPo: Post Politics Hour

lukery: Sibel Edmonds archive

On Monday (Jan. 21) Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame wrote about the lack of US coverage in an op-ed at Brad Blog and hosted at Huffington Post on Tuesday. Another strong diary at Daily Kos appeared Tuesday, UK media slams US media on Sibel Edmonds case.

[Ellsberg] For the second time in two weeks, the entire US press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch’s London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt US officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the US Congress and the courts.

Ellsberg notes that some American journalists have reportedly received calls from “intelligence sources” hinting that what Edmonds happened upon is not a ‘real’ spy ring, but a very sensitive covert operation with highest authorization. Yet if her allegations are true, we have this insane operation to thank for the Pakistani bomb and A.Q. Khan selling nuclear technology to places like Syria, Libya, Iran and North Korea!

[Ellsberg] …if there is any truth to that, we clearly have another prize candidate …in the category of “worst covert operation in US history,” rivaling such contenders as the Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra, and the secret CIA torture camps abroad.

Knowledge of the charges, the backup, the evidence and the players is widespread in D.C. on both sides of the aisle. Complicity in the cover-up is just as widespread and includes the US mainstream media. But the cat’s out of the bag now – the whole world knows about it, except Americans who get their news from newspapers and television. There’s no good reason why the American people should be the last to know about the traitorous deeds of their government.

Links:

US National Security for Sale

US journalists ignore Sunday Times scoop

FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft

Daniel Ellsberg: Covering Up the Coverage

UK media slams US media on Sibel Edmonds case

FBI translator Sibel Edmonds

Britain’s Sunday Times published an article on January 6 entitled For Sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets, detailing the extraordinary claims of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds about how corrupt US government officials allowed Pakistan and other states to ’steal’ nuclear weapons secrets. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a real “bombshell” that ties together many years’ worth of nefarious dealings in the Middle East by officials charged specifically with the task of protecting those nuclear weapons secrets from theft by the very people who were allowed to ’steal’ them!

Edmonds, a Turkish language translator before turning whistleblower, listened to hundreds of sensitive communications intercepted by the FBI while she was stationed at the FBI’s D.C. field office, described to the Sunday Times how foreign intelligence agents enlisted the support of US officials to establish a network of ‘moles’ inside sensitive US military and nuclear installations. The officials involved included one well-known senior official in the US State Department, whom Edmonds says was being paid by Turkish agents in D.C. Those Turks then sold the information to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The Times did not reveal the name of that State Department official, but did contact him about Edmonds’ allegations which he denied strongly. Yet according to Edmonds, who is currently forbidden from speaking about her knowledge in the US by judicial gag order…

“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.”

Edmonds further claims that the FBI was gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including some well-known to the public – who were also aiding foreign agents. Her revelations illustrate just how much US officials aided countries such as Pakistan to acquire nuclear weapons technology. In turn, Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan sold nuclear weapons technology to rogue states like Libya, Iran and North Korea – violating every sense of nuclear non-proliferation treaties and protections. US-backed military dictator Pervez Musharraf (lately implicated in the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto) pardoned Khan, who is seen as a national hero in Pakistan for his contributions to their nuclear weapons program.

For those who have not been following Edmonds’ case, she has given testimony and evidence in closed sessions of Congress and to the 9-11 commission, with key testimony remaining secret. She is now divulging some of that information in defiance of the gag order after becoming disillusioned with US authorities’ failure to act.

Political blogger Chris Floyd writes a fine overview of how Edmonds’ latest revelations ties in with the notorious activities of BCCI [Bank of Credit and Commercial International], which a US Senate investigation called “one of the largest criminal enterprises in history.” BCCI was a prime vehicle for clandestine nuclear proliferation (among other things), while also being used by the CIA and the Reagan and Bush-I White House as cover and financier for covert operations including military and financial support for Saddam Hussein back when he was our ally instead of our worst enemy. On a side note, BCCI also once gave G.W. Bush $25 million to bail him out of one of his many business catastrophes.

Floyd’s article, The Bomb in the Shadows: Proliferation, Corruption and the Way of the World is a worthy read for background and historical information linked to the revelations of ongoing US involvement in nuclear proliferation from Edmonds.

The ties are myriad and twisted, the implications very serious. The full report of the Senate’s 1992 investigation of BCCI (which left several big boulders unturned) is available in full from the Federation of American Scientists. If you’re fond of spy skullduggery, plot twists ala Ludlum (where it’s never a good idea to trust anybody) and shady characters that just won’t stay dead, click on some of these informative links and let your head start spinning. Caution: Be careful not to let your spinning head explode. This has been known to occur…

[UPDATE] Investigative reporter Dave Lindorff’s take on this story echoes my concerns related to those very strangely “missing” nukes from late August that were flown from Minot to Barksdale, a forward deployment station for Iraq/Afghanistan. Check out his post A Real 9/11 Cover-Up? Sibel Edmonds, Turkey and The Bomb.

Links:

For Sale: West’s deadly nuclear secrets

The Bomb in the Shadows: Proliferation, Corruption and the Way of the World

The Atlantic: The Wrath of Khan

No Quarter: Check Out Sibel Edmonds

Those Very Strangely “Missing” Nukes

The recent hoopla about videotapes of the torture of ‘War on Terror’ prisoners Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri by CIA interrogators has drawn some odd denials from people who ought to know better by now. White House press spokesbot Dana Perino kept insisting to all questions that the US does not torture. Period, end of discussion.

What American with an IQ of over 75 believes this garbage, or the George W. Bush “doesn’t remember” knowing about those torture tapes – or ordering their destruction? Anyone who doubts US involvement in torture (and, too often, murder) should read Jennifer Hardbury’s Interview with Buzzflash for realistic background on this issue.

We have a president who holds the record for executions in the state of Texas, who exhibited signs of psychopathic personality disorder as a child (blowing up frogs) and who as drunken frat boy publicly defended branding of pledges with hot wire hangers. He has enlisted in his administration some of the most infamous American orchestrators and enablers of the torture-and-murder regimes in Central America Harbury documented so well in her book Truth, Torture and the American Way.

This time Bush appears to have finally made enough actual patriots mad that he just might might soon find that the whole world is watching. Which could have serious consequences for his planned retirement in Paraguay – if World Court operatives catch up with him first.

Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson dares to publicly ask, Did Bush Eat Popcorn While Watching the Torture Tapes? This is a very scary article, more for its plausibility than for its audacity. There are rumors circulating that there were copies made of those torture tapes, and that at least one (likely more than one) national news source is in possession of them right now. Even if these rumors are off-base, we can be fairly sure copies were made, and that they have not all been destroyed. Such things do have a way of bubbling to the surface eventually.

It is not a stretch to surmise that we haven’t heard the last of this episode yet, so stay tuned!

Links:

Did Bush Eat Popcorn While Watching the Torture Tapes?

Truth, Torture and the American Way

Jennifer Hardbury’s Interview with Buzzflash

The Investigations of the Destruction of CIA Torture Tapes: How an ACLU Lawsuit Might Force the Bush Administration to Reveal What Actually Happened

NYT Editorial: On Torture and American Values