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Sibel
Edmonds – An Appeal to the Internet Community
By W. David
Jenkins III
There has been much activity on the Internet the last few weeks regarding
the
In one instance, it seems that the Washington
Post felt enough pressure by angry readers who were outraged by the
paper’s burying the Downing Street story on page 18 two weeks after the news
broke in Nice work, gang. *
*
*
As important as the Downing Street Minutes and continued pressure on the
mainstream media are to revealing the truth to the nation, there is another
critically important story that
requires our attention and our action — and the clock is ticking away on this
one. We have only until the end of July to make a difference and perhaps turn
the course of history. Of course, I’m referring to Sibel Edmonds and, after my
conversations with her, I felt I should make an effort before time runs out and
her witness to significant governmental chicanery is suppressed by the
government forever.
On May 14, Edmonds published “Gagged,
But Not Dead” which can still be read on her website ( http://www.justacitizen.com/
) where she updates the reader on
the status of her case and the subsequent gag order placed not only on her but
also on members of Congress forbidding
even discussing matters relating to
her case!
Many of you may still be nauseous after being lectured to by the likes of
criminals such as G. Gordon Liddy and Chuck Coleson in the wake of Mark Felt
outing himself as “Deep Throat.” These ex-convicts, along with former
Nixonians like Pat Buchanan, ranted repeatedly that Felt should have followed
the “proper channels of authority” if he had had a problem with the
Watergate scandal rather than sneaking off to the Washington
Post. Sibel Edmonds is the perfect
example of why Felt did the right thing when he leaked to the Post:
those "proper channels of authority" in the Nixon administration were
corrupt. Those "proper channels" were active co-conspirators
themselves. However, the Nixon
administration's activities were simple child’s play compared to the practiced
corruption that rules the Bush II administration — and whistleblowers like
Edmonds, Colleen Rowley and others now know that. Hopefully for them and all of
us, there’s still time to correct the dismaying non-results their adherence to
following “proper channels” have produced. Edmonds testified for more than
three hours behind closed doors to the 9/11 Commission about, assumedly, her
concerns over breeches of security from within the FBI, specifically those of
fellow linguist Melek Can Dickerson, wife of USAF
Major Douglas Dickerson. There were also concerns of the FBI withholding
valuable information from field agents specializing in terrorism investigations
by unit supervisor Mike Feghali. The usual reasoning behind this practice is
that the information also contains references to “certain
countries” or “lucrative or
political connections with this country [U.S.]”In other words, if exposing
a targeted terrorist cell’s illegal activities would prove embarrassing to
either the “interests” of the United
States or one of our allies, then the matter is tucked away. These
and other concerns raised by Edmonds have been confirmed by the FBI — as
stated openly by Senators Patrick Leahy and Charles Grassley — and they were
also supported by documentation and corroborating witnesses. Yet, after more
than three hours of testimony before the Commission, Sibel Edmonds is barely a
footnote in the official 9/11 report. Edmonds submitted an open letter to the
Commission co-chairman, Thomas Kean, concerning the previously mentioned and
other omissions regarding the information she provided them. She noted how these
omissions are an ominous reflection on the final report, which in turn raises
questions of bias and inaccuracy on the report as a whole. How does
suppressing information that people within our own intelligence agencies have
continued connections with organizations currently targeted by FBI
investigations do anything to help strengthen our national security? Exactly
what are these high level officials so afraid of coming out? Unfortunately,
the unprecedented actions of the zealot-turned-Attorney General will keep all
those secrets locked away – unless we raise enough noise to change that. One
other thing that As in the case of the Downing
Street Documents, the majority of lawmakers and the mainstream media choose to
divert attention of the American population from the lies and cover-ups that
pass for “business as usual” in the Bush administration. It is only through
the efforts of concerned Americans in conjunction with the Internet Community
that our leaders and the media will finally be forced to take notice and assume
their responsibilities to those they purport to serve. As those of us who make up this
cyber grassroots community have witnessed, leaders such as Representative John
Conyers have expressed their gratitude for the efforts of bloggers and others
who kept the pressure on lawmakers and media members long enough for them to
take serious notice of the documentation showing the lies used by this White
House to devise and construct today's disaster in Iraq. But we need to remember that more
unreported information is out there concerning the alleged war on terror and
revealing the subversive actions by members of our own government to undermine
that conflict in order to protect business and diplomatic relations. And those
who would wish to expose this domestic threat to our national security are
gagged and/or threatened while the media ignore the whole world-shattering
situation because somebody disappeared on spring-break in Aruba and because
Michael Jackson threw a party and Tom Cruise and what’s-her-name got engaged. One of the things Sibel expressed
to me was the need for people to contact their representatives regarding her
case. As we have seen in the case of the I don’t normally do “calls for
action” in this venue but, with the clock ticking on legal recourse in the
case of Sibel Edmonds and the ramifications should her gag order remain in
effect indefinitely, I feel a responsibility to speak up. I urge everyone to take the time
to contact members of Congress and the media – before time runs out and the
administration gets away with silencing a very important voice. Please, please take the time and
do it now.
Additional
information and government contact numbers can be obtained from Sibel Edmonds’
web site http://www.justacitizen.com/index.htm Media
contact numbers and addresses can be found at FAIR’s web site http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=111
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