by
Phillip
Todd
We
are speaking today with Sibel
Deniz Edmonds who is a former translator who
worked as a contractor for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
and founder of the National
Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC).
Edmonds gained public attention following her firing from her
position as a language specialist at the FBI's Washington Field
Office in March 2002. She had accused a colleague of covering up
illicit activity, alleged serious security breaches and cover-ups and
that intelligence had been deliberately suppressed, endangering
national security. Her later claims gained her awards and fame
as a whistleblower. Former FBI special
agent Dennis Saccher states Edmonds's story "should have been
front page news" because it is "a scandal bigger than
Watergate".
American Constitutionalist:
The rise of ISIS supposedly caught the United States off guard. The
government, through Joe Biden, has blamed it's allies for this. Where
did ISIS or ISIL come from?
Sibel
Edmonds: The rise of ISIS is mainly about the brand change.
Sometimes… sometimes as it happens in marketing we see exactly the
same principle within the geopolitical games that have been in play
for a while now, especially since the end of the Cold War, and the
Al-Qaeda brand began wearing off, and that brand now has been changed
to ISIS - as always, by design; and, considering the fact that the
US cultivated and put together, financed and created the ISIS, for me
it goes into one of those caricature or funny statements (falsehoods)
that are put out by the mainstream media, statements issued by people
like Obama or anybody from the State Department.
AC:
So Al-Qaeda is part of ISIS?
SE:
To answer the question briefly, the ISIS is what is the U.S. media
and the propaganda creators behind the media decided to create. I
mean, tomorrow or 3 months from now we will start hearing another
name, that we’ve never heard of, and within a month they can make
that the world’s greatest or the most dangerous threat. That is the
main concept here, and I know the Western media, U.S. media, the
Western media, they have been playing it as such, but they did
exactly the same thing with Al-Qaeda. I referred to the brand-change,
and sometimes you have to switch the brand for the marketing purposes
– with ISIS as you can look at and see from the term, from the name
now, the brand created, the Western powers.
AC:
What we hear from the media is that President Obama blamed the chaos
of the Syrian civil war for the rise of ISIS. At the same time, the
U.S. doesn’t hide that it’s been helping the rebels in Syria from
the very beginning. Did the U.S. intelligence know who they are
funding?
SE:
Absolutely, as they did in 80s with the Mujahideen (Taliban) in
Afghanistan, as they did it with various so-called Islamic terror
cells within Caucasus and Central Asia, as they did with Al-Qaeda,
and this is not different. As I’ve said, you’re only looking at a
brand change; you’re not looking at any kind of a new phenomenon,
as far as the U.S. global perpetual warfare is concerned.
AC:
The U.S. is giving aid and assistance to moderate rebel groups in
Syria – or so they say. Some countries call these groups terrorists
also, so who works to determine if rebels are moderate or not? Is
there really a way of knowing that? Are you saying that the Taliban,
Al-Qaeda, ISIL, and ISIL are all the same?
SE:
Again, it is really to talk to or talk around all these propaganda
created by the Western powers through the mainstream media, and I
feel that if I start even commenting on that, its belittling the
facts on the ground. Again, I want to go back and provide the
context, and say: look, Mujahedeen, which later became aka Al-Qaeda,
they were the freedom fighters. So, and we have had similar situation
in the Balkans during the war. You know, you had people or the
factions that were considered fanatics or criminal or terrorists,
whether it was KLA, and then they became “freedom fighters”, they
became our allies. You’re looking exactly at the same thing.
Different brand, but you’re looking exactly at the same phenomenon,
and we can talk around this and bring in all the different factors,
they should put forward by the Western media, and then we can put it
and compare it, what has been happening in the past 30-35 years, and
we’ll see that the marketing strategy is the same, it’s just a
brand differs.
AC:
The former CIA chief and the ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said
the U.S. is looking at at least a 30-year war against ISIS, which is
not at all what the White House is telling the public. Is he
exaggerating? What’s your estimate?
SE:
I would say it’s a very short period; I’m really surprised,
because we just talked about the brand change. The war against
Al-Qaeda was declared as a “forever war” and it has been
expanding. I mean, when the war against Al-Qaeda started, it was
supposed to be in Afghanistan, and we started chasing Al-Qaeda in
Yemen, and Pakistan with all the drone attacks, Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and
the fact that this was going to be a forever war… and now that the
brand has changed to ISIS, I’m very surprised that the former FBI
director is stamping it with a short-time period. I believe 30 year
period is very short, unless that have already in plan other sects or
other factions that they are going to declare the “world’s great
and most dangerous terrorists”. We currently are more interested in
an ongoing, never-ending, perpetual war.
AC:
U.S. Vice-president Joe Biden blamed Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey
for helping extremists in Syria – then he later apologized for his
comments, but was he right?
SE:
Rather than dignifying people like Biden, let’s talk my news
organization. It was the first one to really break within the U.S.
the training of the Syrian rebels in Turkey, and this was 6 or 5
months before anything about Syria actually made it to the news;
using a U.S. airbase – and this is in Southern Turkey, close to the
border with Syria – and this was NATO and the U.S. factions
training and arming and sending back, having them cross the border,
rebels, long before Syria actually became the news. As I said this
was done in Turkey by the NATO forces, mainly U.S. and British
forces, and it was something that was planned and designed and
implemented by the U.S. So, for Joe Biden to come and put this out
right now… of course he will get away with it, because the
mainstream media here is not going to go and revisit the facts that
were exposed with the activities of the U.S., what they did in
Turkey, training these faction – now it’s called ISIS.
AC:
Turkey is slowly slipping towards becoming an Islamic state. How are
the US and NATO responding to this threat?
SE:
In reality, Turkey is a member of NATO and Turkey is greatly managed
and directed by the U.S. – has been for a several decades, there’s
no question about that. If you start getting the opinion polls in
Turkey, you will see that over 90% of Turkey are against the US and
NATO moves. Turkey had a pretty good relationship with Assad and with
Syria, they’ve engaged in some really good level of commerce. There
has been zero advantage to ousting him but they have to implement
policies created, designed and issued by the U.S. and NATO, and
that’s what they are doing.
AC:
Recently, FBI chief James Comeywarned terrorists are working on an
effort to attack the U.S. very soon. Is the U.S. ready to respond?
SE:
We have to look at different things and see why this statement was
made. Is it based on some sort of facts and real solid intelligence
gathered, or is it the fact that it’s time to re-energize the
Americans with the fear of terrorism. We need to have more
expenditure for things to put in place, because we can go ahead and
increase the threat level within the airports. Let me give you an
example. If you look at the stock market and stock prices for all the
military-industrial complex-related companies and firms, you will see
how they have just gone up tremendously since the brand switch from
Al-Qaeda to ISIS, and this is, again, the brand-change I’m
referring to, this is when you say “yes, now we can go ahead and
produce and sell more to the government and it will spend billions
more”. So, the same thing is true for the internal security,
fear-mongering factors on the ground in the U.S. It’s time to
re-energize that fear, and that is exactly what they are doing.
What’s going to follow this is there’s going to be more measures
put in place, whether it’s in the airports, or whether it’s the
hiring within the FBI, or increasing the number of informants or
increased spying on internet chatter. Those are the things that are
going to follow this announcement: “we have to have more
expenditure, because of the public consent, because the fear level is
going to go up, and therefore those expenditures are going to be
justified” – and it is that simple as that.
AC:
The FBI also says that dozens of Americans are believed to be
fighting in Syria with rebel groups. How did that happen?
SE:
Well it has to happen. If it’s not the case, it has to happen,
because you’re looking at…how ordinary Americans perceive these
things? Think about it: Syria and this area, that region in Iraq –
they are thousands of miles away, what can they do to us from there.
So, it’s not enough to raise the terror threat and really do some
heavy-duty fear-mongering. But, if you bring some U.S. elements and
ties there, if we have Americans over there, who are going to come
back here, and they are going to, you know, be our boogey-men on the
ground, and they going to blow up buildings – that’s going to be
marketing-wise more attractive, and it’s going to be easier to sell
to the American public the notion of our war against ISIS. You’re
not going to hear much of the Al-Qaeda for a while, Al-Qaeda is going
to disappear and exit the stage, replaced by ISIS – so yes, this is
another marketing strategy. If we start looking at what’s
happening, what has been happening and what is being put forward by
these people, including the former CIA director and the U.S. – and
if you start looking at it from the marketing perspective we get to
find more answers and understand what’s going on, rather than
trying to approach this through some logical, political,
philosophical or even sociological analysis. I think the best model
that fits and explains what’s happening right now is the marketing
model, and we should look at it as such.
AC:
Twitter is suing the FBI because it is not allowed to tell the public
when the government asks for surveillance help – why is surveilling
Twitter such a big deal for the U.S. government? Does so much depend
on Twitter and other social media?
SE:
No. Why surveilling all Americans through NSA with their phone, every
single conversation is such an important thing for the government?
Again, I’m going to take us back and say what kind of reaction from
the public does this create? When we hear every day how much is being
gathered from the Facebook is true and what’s being gathered and
collected and how people are being monitored through their Twitters,
combined with what we have already known since 2004-2005, the expose
on NSA, you have a better chance of controlling the majority,
controlling the people.
AC:
Can the FBI and CIA, NSA control their information; prevent it from
gaining public attention. Like, what can prevent people like you, for
instance, or Ed Snowden, from speaking out?
SE:
Nothing. Nothing prevents people from speaking out. I have been
speaking out – you have been speaking out. I don’t think the U.S.
government is really bothered. If the U.S. government is really
bothered by people who are speaking out, people like me or some
credible, real whistleblowers, and if that becomes a real threat,
it’s very easy for them to take out those people, to eliminate
them. But they are not, because it’s hasn’t risen to that level
yet. If the reach were such and if the consequences of people
speaking out really reached a real masses and brought out some
reaction – then you would be looking at totally different scenario,
or the reaction ,or action, by the U.S. government. But we haven’t
seen it yet.
AC:
Sibel Edmonds, thank you so much for this insight and for your take
on things that are going on with our government right now.
Our
readers can access more information on her website which is the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC)
http://www.nswbc.org/
