FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds spills her secrets (The American Conservative)

I haven't read the entire comment list on the two main Sibel
Edmonds posts so this may be redundant. I would advise a
certain amount of caution in getting too worked up over this
before it becomes clearer. Of course it may need a few
outraged types to push the effort to look into it so I guess
I'm contradicting myself up front. In any event here is a link
to someone who has a little more background knowledge.

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2008/01/in-defence-of-i.html

The gist of the caution is that it seems that Ms Edmonds only
worked for the agency for 6 months give or take and that she
is foreign born (In Iran of Azeri/Turkish decent) If either is
true it puts some serious constraints on her story. The former
would raise the question of how she managed to get so deep in
so short a time. It isn't impossible, but certainly unusual.
If the latter is true it raises the question of how she would
be trusted in the first place as this is after all a world of
hyper whacked loyalty and just being from somewhere is bound
to make someone more suspicious in a guilt by association
profile. It is the way these folks think sadly. 

It all may be true and in my opinion I have no doubt we play
both sides all the time even if her specific tale turns out to
be concocted. In such a case it would be like the forged
documents on Bush's military record. They were forgeries
indeed, and this was used ruthlessly to suppress the real
story that they were however quite accurate. Bush was AWOL, he
did cheat his way in, he was a problem soldier, and so on, but
that was forgotten because of this one forgery. So that is why
I would advise caution. You may say damned if we do damned if
we don't and I would agree. I hope that this story can be
pursued without turning into a freak show at least until it
stands on firm ground. Good luck!

I have no doubt that we do things like this all the time. I
have no doubt that it has gone on in every administration be
it Rep or Dem. Many of the players in these games are ruthless
in the extreme. The higher one goes the more ruthless and the
more common utter amoral personalities are. This is of course
just my opinion based on the results I can see only. (From
Afghan rebels, to Chile, to Indonesian anti communist/Chinese
pogroms, to Samosas and Shahs and on and on) I'm far from an
"insider". So as to why she is risking jail or even
if she really is, is a good query. I can't possibly know. She
is gaged, but speaking anyway and saying she can't say even
more because she is gagged. That sounds a little funny to me.
Why waste our time with tidbits that already put you in
danger, presumably, and not the full story? May well be true
though. She may just be trying to save her life by being as
public as possible, but why not just shut up to begin with?
Perhaps she got a sniff of something went to a superior and
quickly found herself in the turmoil beyond her control.
That's a good answer, but again how could we possibly know?
Why the government would publicize the event by gaging her and
letting her run around I also don't know. I can easily
envision a scheme similar to the forged documents on Bush. I
am also convinced that petty personal egos are involved as
they ALWAYS are. How many folks do things because of their
principles? It may sound pessimistic, but I bet it is a really
small number. Who knows? I hope to hear more. I'm glad the
story is posted and that a discussion is happening. 

I must admit that in the past couple hours I have been posting
that I have added significantly to my knowledge about the
case.  I didn't read into the post I linked to that she was
dismissive at all, only cautious. I agree with that caution,
but as I have learned more I am more inclined to believe Ms.
Edmonds. I still feel like her points are good ones and that
they should be answered. I still feel there is ample room for
misunderstandings on her part regardless of her sincerity. The
"answers" to the above would go a long way in
helping me/us understand the scope of the potential
misunderstanding in the case. I obviously don't know what the
truth is, but these issues seem legit to me.

As an aside; in my experience if you present something fairly
complex to a group of people once 100% of them will not
"get it" fully as you meant. Most will be seriously
wrong in parts and some will have no clue. People bring so
much predigested and semi fixed convictions to the table it is
really difficult to get through that. If this happens to
strike a chip off the ego's shoulder as well you wind up in a
hopeless mess even if everyone was perfectly sincere. (OK that
depends on what you mean by sincere, but you get the point
right?) As for native apple pie Farsi etc... speakers I do in
fact know a couple off hand. I live in the Bay Area which is
highly diverse, but it is still the US (kind of). My colleague
behind me is an atheist blond woman with fair skin and is
native, half arabic and fluent. The guy down stairs is 3rd
generation Turkish, but he only understands it as he never
spoke it actively as a kid. (A sad plight of many bilingual
kids including my own German/English kids) He runs around in
cowboy boots and too tight jeans. I had a friend in college in
Colorado who was to all the world a typical CO ski bunny
complete with ponytail and slang. She was of Azeri decent and
fluent. From what she told me Turkish and Azeri are virtually
the same language. So you might be surprised how many folks
there are out there who don't fit the silly stereotypes and
profiles of Turk/Azeri/Iranian whatever those are. My ancestry
is French and I speak German and Russian (no French) so go
figure. 

And lastly: The issue most important to me is not if Joe Blow
made a few bucks selling secrets. I'm absolutely convinced
that this is done constantly. This is guaranteed given what we
are doing. Regardless of weather she is dead on, half way
right, entirely confused or even actively and complicitly
lying, my hope is that the underlying stupidity of what we are
doing becomes clearer to folks. The whole system is deeply
bipartisan and that is likely (to me) a huge factor in why
there is so much resistance to her. The people in charge here
be they Dems, Reps or simply monied interests all share the
same foundation. They are highly disdainful of democracy, they
are obsessed with power, they are whole hearted believers in
American exceptionalism and they accept entirely the paradigm
of our consumer/exploiter capitalist system. The exceptions
are exceedingly rare and they don't get within a country mile
of any true power. If they do or somehow cause enough trouble
they are eliminated. History is full of their blood. Now I am
bringing my own predigested notions to the issue here, but
this is what I see most strongly in this case. It's like the
film Charlie Wilson's War. The makers were your run of the
mill Democrat loyalists types so they spun the history to look
positive and gung ho instead of opportunistic and sick and
wrote out the many Republican players. Never the less
throughout the movie you see (I saw) how the system was
utterly divorced from the people. The makers were so deep in
their own dogma that I doubt they even noticed it, but the
strongest message of the film seemed to be a ringing expose of
our nation as an oligarchy through and through. We get lost
bickering over some fall guy while the system rolls on just as
blindly as before.

 Well that may have been a bit overboard myself.