According to the New York Times yesterday, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is said to be on the payroll of the CIA, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. According to the article:
The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the CIA's direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai's home.
(...)
The relationship between Mr. Karzai and the CIA is wide ranging, several American officials said. He helps the CIA operate a paramilitary group, the Kandahar Strike Force, that is used for raids against suspected insurgents and terrorists. On at least one occasion, the strike forces has been accused of launching an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan government, the officials said.
Mr. Karzai is also widely believed to be involved in Afghanistan's booming opium trade, a $65 billion global industry.
As our political leaders consider further escalating the war in Afghanistan, a consideration that 54% of Americans oppose, the history of the CIA, foreign intelligence agencies (particularly Turkish, Israeli and Pakistani agencies), and their ties to various U.S. officials is worth remembering. After all, it is widely documented that the CIA had countless dealings with the mujahdeen in Central Asia during the 1980s and 1990s, principally the CIA's funding of Muslim guerillas, including Osama bin Laden, resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Also, as Michael Moore pointed out in his film, Farenheit 9/11, many members of the bin Laden family and other Saudi nationals were flown out of the country shortly after 9/11, and many of them were not even interviewed or questioned by FBI agents. This fact alone should make one rethink what actually happened on 9/11 and who was involved.
The NYT article mentioned above startled me for a number of reasons. First off, why would the U.S. government, through the CIA, be funding a warlord directly involved and personally benefiting from the drug trade, something US and NATO forces have been trying to disrupt and eliminate since the beginning of the invasion? The fact that the CIA, and quite possibly other foreign intelligence agencies, are still involved in covert and illegal dealings with thugs in Central Asia should give every American pause.
On Monday, Sibel Edmonds and John Cole, both former FBI agents, had a lengthy, but detailed, interview with Scott Horton of Anti-War Radio that shed some light on all of this. Edmonds, who worked primarily as a Turkish translator for the FBI, has risen numerous issues regarding 9/11, foreign espionage carried out by US agents on behalf of other countries (principally Israel and Turkey), and other nefarious activities that have not been investigated.
In a recent interview with Philip Giraldi of The American Conservative magazine, Edmonds highlights some important individuals that she claims were highly involved in espionage, bribery, and other illegal activities, including Marc Grossman, Air Force Major Douglas Dickerson, Dickerson's wife (who worked with Edmonds as a translator at the FBI), the Turkish born Can Dickerson, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith. The entire article is simply a must read, but I will highlight some main points here.
-Numerous investigations, dating back to the 1970s, were launched by the FBI against Feith, Perle, Grossman and others who were suspected of providing classified information-- military technology, access to weapons systems, policy proposals, ect.-- to various foreign governments, most notably Turkey and Israel. These investigations were never fully brought to fruition, which explains why Edmonds was fired after raising serious objections to her superiors at the FBI about this activity.
-This classified information was paid for using bribes and front companies, which many of the officials listed above worked for, and was then resold to other foreign intelligence agencies in many instances
-Numerous Congress members and their staffers were involved in some of these dealings
-Can Dickerson, Douglas Dickerson's wife who was hired by the FBI and given top security clearance, had a history with the American Turkish Council and was suspected of hiding intelligence and covering up various wrongdoings
There are many more details to this story that this amateur writer could not possibly cover, and I encourage all to thoroughly research and investigate this story for themselves. It is very confusing, and has not been covered by the mainstream media in any serious way for the past 5 years (or more). What is apparent is that intelligence agencies, both foreign and domestic, have shady dealings, high level contacts, and enormous budgets to engage in this type of activity (espionage, bribery, extra-judicial killings, ect.) and that should come as no surprise to anyone. What is extremely troubling, especially in light of the recent outrage expressed by Republican members of Congress claiming that the Council on American-Islamic Relations was trying to infiltrate the US government, is that this woman and the claims she makes are hardly noticed by the American public. This is one investigation that needs to take place immediately. Given the fact that numerous high ranking and influential individuals in our government, private sector, and international community are involved in this scandal, any investigation seems unlikely. Not to mention the fact that virtually no mainstream media outlet is covering this story...
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This post would be a lot better if most of it was spent discussing what is actually happening in Afghanistan. Bringing in 9/11 conspiracies is going to make most people stop reading what you wrote and doesn't really contribute to the overall quality of your writing. I'd rather hear what you think is going on with the CIA in greater depth. The CIA doing terrible things is worth discussing, but it doesn't help to bring in unrelated things.
ReplyDeleteA few factual errors:
1) Osama bin Laden was never funded by the CIA to fight the Russians. Nor was any other non-Afghan.
http://www.911myths.com/html/bin_ladin_links_to_the_cia.html
2) No one, let alone the Saudis, was flying between 9/11 and when skies were opened on 9/13 unless he was: a) a government official or b) delivering organs for transplants. Bin Laden's distant relatives that left the United States did so 8 or 9 days after the attacks.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/flights.asp
Thanks for the response.
ReplyDeleteMy main point is that the CIA, and other foreign intelligence agencies including, but not limited to, the Turkish, Israeli, Pakistani, and Saudi agencies, had direct involvement in Central Asia for at least the past 2 decades, and funneled money to mujahadeen fighters that were resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Now, I have read numerous reports that detail how the CIA funneled money through the ISI (Pakistani intelligence) which then dished the money out to the mujahadeen, including bin Laden. Also, I am not sure if you read or heard anything that Sibel Edmonds or John Cole had to say regarding this issue, but they make clear that the CIA and FBI had direct involvement with what they called "the bin Ladens", plural. Whether they had direct contact with Osama bin Laden is not clear to me, but does seem unlikely. To my knowledge, bin Laden was an outsider in his family, denouncing their wealth and ties to the corrupt, tyrannical, and, in bin Laden's mind, illegitimate government of Saudi Arabia. It would not surprise me if bin Laden had absolutely no connection with US intelligence, but I would not be surprised if members of his family did, if we are to assume that what Edmonds and Cole tell us is correct, that the CIA and FBI had connections not with bin Laden per se, but with "the bin Ladens", which could mean any number of individuals.
Regarding the flights following 9/11, I am not sure who was flown out of this country or for what reason. We do know that numerous shady individuals, including members of bin Laden's family, were flown out of the country shortly after 9/11, when the FAA allowed commercial flights to resume (see the pdf link in the post for a FOIA request for the flight list). Also, in the Edmonds and Cole interview, they talk about how Marc Grossman, the number 3 person at the State Department at the time, had (I hope I am remembering this correctly) 2 Turks and 2 Uzbeks "deported" from the country AFTER they were picked up by FBI agents in New Jersey following 9/11. Now, it is important to remember that Marc Grossman (along with Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz) has had a history of espionage and selling secrets to foreign governments, most notably Israel and Turkey. Furthermore, PRIOR to 9/11, these same people were in contact with top Turkish military/intelligence and political leaders with the prospect of invading Iraq (remember, before 9/11) using Turkish bases. Apparently, according to Edmonds and Cole in the interview, when the Turks requested that they be given control of the northern section of Iraq (the Kurdish region largely), the US resisted and the plan fell through. You may remember how in the lead up to the Iraq war, many people were assuming that the invasion would be launched using Turkish bases as a starting point. After the Turks realized that they would not be given free reign in northern Iraq, they cut the deal off, and justified it by saying that "the Turkish people would not allow it", which was true.
Also, and this was a big reason why Sibel Edmonds was fired, a woman named Can Dickerson (wife of Major Douglas Dickerson, who was a big time player in the intelligence world and had major connections with Turkey), who is Turkish, was hired as a translator by the FBI. Although Can Dickerson has direct ties to Turkish lobbying interests (she worked for the American Turkish Council), she was still hired. Edmonds has accused her of covering up secrets and getting incriminating evidence off the books. It also should be pointed out that, and this is sworn testimony Edmonds gave to a court in Ohio this year, Can and Douglas Dickerson made a surprise visit to Sibel Edmonds' house and offered her money to join their side. (You can read her entire testimony at http://www.bradblog.com/Docs/SibelEdmondsDeposition_Transcript_080809.pdf) Also, in the interview, Edmonds talks about how the daughter of a former ISI official in Pakistan was hired and has since been promoted (I can't remember her name but it is in the Anti-War Radio interview) even though she has direct ties to Pakistani intelligence.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a crazy, confusing story and I honestly wish that we could somehow get to the bottom of it. I honestly believe that somewhere in all of these intelligence operations 9/11 was planned and executed. You may disagree with that, but there are a lot of holes that need to be filled in this story. There are countless websites and sources of information that could substantial what you claim, and I am not discrediting them, but in my gut I just feel that somehow, some way, some people got anyway with 9/11 and there were elements of our government involved....