Sibel Edmonds and The Rogues Gallery 2.0

On taking the world's most classified woman seriously but not literally...

If you’re coming here from twitter, you probably can guess what this is but if not a brief introduction by way of digression:

I used to be a normal man with relatively normal interests and a twitter account where I shared those interests - and then something happened.

I contracted a mind virus.

I stumbled upon the edges of a vast conspiracy and like the Lovecraftian investigator became possessed by the search. The rabbit hole I fell down was the present and ongoing conflict between China and the United States over the Uyghurs and Xinjiang and the person most directly responsible for that fall was Sibel Edmonds.

Looking further back I can see a longer path that led me here.

To developing an interest in terrorism and geopolitics in Central Asia through the writings of Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid in college.

Back further to a life trajectory altering visit to a pre-Arab Spring Egypt, where crude firsthand material analysis as a young teen dispelled many of my passively absorbed notions about Islam and its supposed role in the Middle East’s dysfunction.

To my childhood and the shared source of the endemic cynicism hard-won by all millennials, the mass trauma ritual of 9/11 followed by bearing witness to its ruthless and expert exploitation to prey upon the minds and opinions of our parents. This image etched even shaper in my mind by proximity, living front row to both the ritual site and its occult practitioners in Fairfax Virginia.

But really it was Sibel Edmonds and the Uyghurs that sent me over the edge.

For the uninitiated Sibel Edmonds’ epoch as a cultural phenomenon was nearly two decades ago at the height of the Bush Era. Beloved equally by the Daily Kos-Posting Left and Ron Paul Paleo-Con Right, Edmonds’ was most of all the darling of the 9/11 truth movement.

An Iranian-Azeri who’s family had immigrated to Turkey when she was a child, who immigrated again to America to study at George Mason University Sibel Edmonds had just received her US citizenship after marrying her American husband (a much older ex-military man). Having applied to work as an intern for the FBI while in undergrad but never hearing back, after 9/11 suddenly the G-Men came calling desperate to put her considerable linguistic skills (fluent in Azeri, Farsi, Turkish and English) onto the battlefield of the War on Terror as a contract translator. Piqued by a fit of patriotism for her new homeland, she jumped at the chance.

She lasted 6 months.

Edmonds claims that her contentious firing was retaliation for blowing the whistle on gross professional impropriety if not outright sedition within the FBI. The most direct target of her ire was a fellow Turkish language translator; another recent immigrant, also married to an older ex-military American (who was working at the time for infamous Bush administration reptile Douglas Feith), who Edmonds alleges was involved with the same Turkish lobbying outfits that she knew from the wire-tap recordings she was transcribing and translating were under investigation by the FBI for trying to covertly influence American politicians through bribery and blackmail.

Edmonds claims this woman and her husband initially drew her suspicion when they approached her and her husband with an offer to involve them with these groups and when rebuffed attempted to ensure all case material coming through for translation would be assigned to her and only her.

Edmonds alleged upon reviewing this co-worker’s translations and transcriptions she found a clear pattern of obstruction; wire-tap translations being mistranslated, mis-labeled as non-pertinent or simply left untranslated. When Edmonds brought her concerns to her supervisor she was reprimanded and then later fired.

When speaking on the scope of the investigation she was a part of, it was not only looking into the rampant corruption a bribe taking of high-ranking US politicians. The FBI had allegedly collected evidence on Turkish intelligence operations involving drug-smuggling, the financing of terrorism and the black-market sale of US nuclear secrets to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.¹

Even more sensational were Edmonds’ claims that not only was US intelligence involved with Osama bin Ladin right up until days before the September 11th attacks (allegedly planning a campaign to destabilize Central Asia using al Qaeda forces from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Xinjiang being trained in camps in Afghanistan²), officials in the FBI not only had foreknowledge of the attacks but had compartmentalized and concealed that information, seemingly in a concerted effort to prevent any effective counter-terrorism response.

Edmonds was named the ACLU's Whistleblower of the Year. None of her allegedly 3.5 hours of testimony given to the 9/11 Commission were ever publicly released, in their report it was cut down to a single footnote only noting that the information was classified.

Infamously she was gagged under the “State Secrets privilege” by the Bush administration when she was called to give a deposition by the lawyers of the 9/11 families, claiming her statements “would cause serious damage to the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States”³.

Year later the FBI did acknowledge that the many of the events around her firing were confirmed, such as her co-worker's unsavory ties to what was likely a Turkish spy ring, but her claims regarding the response to 9/11 were not further investigated.⁴ None of the suspects Edmonds claims were being investigated in the corruption case were charged.

While all the above is interesting, it is Sibel Edmonds other claims that have fascinated me for the last year and a half.

Allegations about a shadowy Turkish religious leader living in the United States, funding himself through one of the largest Charter School networks in the country, wielding undue influence over elected officials all while enjoying a distressingly close relationship with members of the American intelligence elite.

Allegations about a notorious gangster and heroin trafficker traveling the globe to moonlight as a terrorist and assassin for the Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), Turkey’s intelligence agency, until his very suspect death outside the town of Susurluk in 1996.

And weaving all the players together a grand conspiracy theory, Gladio B - that humble plans for a post-war “stay-behind” force meant to provide behind-enemy-lines resistance in the event of a Soviet invasion of Europe had over the ensuing half century morphed and metastasized into a globalized strategy of tension, trading in Nazi collaborationists for Middle Eastern religious fanatics as its fresh catspaw for the new millennium.

All of these claims were presented to me uncritically in Paul L Williams’ 2014 book Operation Gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia, which cites Mrs. Edmonds near constantly in its chapter “Gladio Triumphant”: from which I’ll quote Mrs. Edmonds -

Now what would your response be if I were to say on the record, and if required, under oath: “Between 1996 and 2002 we, the Unites States, planned, financed and help execute every terrorist incident by Chechen rebels against Russia. Between 1996 and 2002, we, the United States, planned, financed and helped execute every single uprising and terror related scheme in Xinjiang. Between 1996 and 2002, we, the United States, planned and carried out at least two assassination schemes against pro-Russian officials in Azerbaijan.”⁵

When I first read this Xinjiang was a hot topic. We had reached a point in the discourse where it had filtered down to the level of unnamed Twitch debate streamers with a penchant for certain animal appendages reading word for word Adrien Zenz’s Victims of Communism Foundation studies to their audience of credulous braindead zoomers - needless to say I was a very willing recipient of this message; the CIA was behind literally all of it because of course they are.

So my response was to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find what I could independently verify of Mrs. Edmonds claims, specifically those involving the US’ operation in Xinjiang.

An easy starting point for my research were the individuals allegedly involved in this operation who Edmonds claimed were protected by her silencing via States Secrets Privilege, members of her “Rogues Gallery”

The Rogues Gallery was the result of Edmonds remaining under threat of potential legal consequence from the Bush administration and unable to speak candidly about information she had gleaned from her time at the FBI. In an attempt to get our her most controversial message and provide some window into the government’s most closely guarded secrets she was forced to use more circuitous means- a contextless collage on her blog of various public figures ranging from well-known political figures like longtime Republican Speaker of the House (and pedophile) Dennis Hastert to an obscure coterie of DC operatives from its many think tanks, lobbying firms and NGOs.

A guiding principle for consuming Edmonds’ content for me has been to focus on the rare instance where she was able to speak on the record, under oath about the things she claims to have witnessed during her time in the FBI - her deposition as an expert witness on Turkey’s illicit lobbying efforts for a 2009 lawsuit against former Ohio Congresswoman Jean Schmidt, who’d allegedly taken a $30,000 bribe from Turkish lobbyists for a vote against a bill recognizing the Armenian genocide.

Finally able to speak at length, under oath in and the record she opened about Turkey’s overt and covert influence and Washington and one of its most notable emissaries at the time, Fethullah Gülen and his operation in Central Asia

Due to the scope of the case the Uyghurs did not come up.

However, the Rogues Gallery did.

When asked about her inclusion of Indiana Congressman Dan Burton she said this about the gallery as a whole:

“I can't discuss the details of those individuals’ not legal activities in the United States, but those pictures, his and others, are there because State Secrets Privilege was mainly involved to cover up those individuals illegal, extremely illegal activities against the United States citizens, who were involved in operations… for foreign governments and foreign entities against the United States' interests”

⁶

Amongst those figures included in the gallery two men loom large in my research - Graham Fuller and Anwar Yusuf Turani.

To give a summary of her claims presented on her various blog posts and podcast appearances that were collected and arranged as a more concise argument by Paul L Williams in his book they are as follows:

• Turkey has long been interested in drawing Central Asia and its ethnic and linguistically “Turkic” peoples into their sphere of influence, with the US during the Cold War supporting these efforts preferring their NATO ally take control then their rivals Russia and China.

• After the fall of the Soviet Union, Turkey sought to influence the region through a variety of means but most importantly to Sibel Edmonds and Paul L Williams through the Ülkü Ocakları (Idealist Hearths), better known as the “Grey Wolves” - the paramilitary wing of the Pan-Turkist ultranationalist political party Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (Nationalist Movement Party / MHP) founded by Colonel Alparslan Türkeş, the CIA-trained head of Counter-Guerilla, Turkey’s Gladio Operation.

• This operation was initially led by Grey Wolves leader / mobster / MIT assassin, Abdullah Çatlı until he mysterious death in 1996 not long after organizing a failed coup attempt in Azerbaijan. It was then taken over by an unlikely successor: the enigmatic Sufi cleric Fethullah Gülen

• Gülen and his movement were already heavily involved in Post-Soviet Central Asia through businesses, NGOs and schools operated by the movement of his followers. They were especially interested in Xinjiang and the Uyghurs, lobbying behind the scenes for their cause to politicians in both Turkey and the United States.

• Gülen’s closest ally in the US was Graham Fuller, a then retired high ranking CIA officer who had overseen the use of Mujahedeen fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets, who was then researching Xinjiang and the Uyghurs for the Rand Corporation at this time

• Together, these two were the hidden hand pulling the strings on every act of sedition and terrorism within Xinjiang, ultimately lending their support to US-based Uyghur activist Anwar Yusuf Turani in the creation of an East Turkistan Government in Exile, linking US / Turkish intelligence to both separatist activists in the diaspora as well as Uyghur militants both in and outside of Xinjiang.

The question I have received from people who’ve read Williams’ book and knowing me as “the Uyghur guy” has been how much of this can I prove?

Indisputably Sibel Edmonds has had access to classified materials and learned things other people would have no way of knowing in her 6-month long career in the FBI - the Bush administration resorting to such nakedly censorious means to prevent her from speaking about these individuals on the record proves as much. However, especially when it comes to the Uyghurs and Xinjiang, I don’t know if I believe that all of her claims come solely from her access to this sensitive information.

When asked by readers on her blog to write something more in-depth on the issue she’s demurred, replying with something to the effect of “do your own research, the pieces are there”. That’s not to say she hasn’t spoken or written about the Uyghurs and Xinjiang, she’s done that plenty - just not at length, or specificity and certainly not under oath in a court of law.

Which is why I believe that in regard to this issue while she should be taken seriously, its fruitless to adopt her framing and try to prove or disprove her claims. Ultimately the only verification she has is raw intelligence that none of us can even come close to accessing let alone even confirm it exists. We’re squarely in Jesse Ventura “folks, I’ve seen the documents” territory.

There are certainly a number of tantalizing publicly available hints at the nexus between Fuller, Gülen and Turani. The relationship between Fuller and Gülen is pretty straightforward, Fuller openly admires the Imam for being a “moderating influence” not just in Turkey but potentially the whole Muslim world⁷ .

When Gülen was forced to flee Turkey under suspicion of plotting to overthrow the secular republic in favor of an Islamist theocracy, Fuller showed his support by helping secure Gülen’s permanent residence in the US⁸ . Immigration officials naturally concerned regarding the opacity of the sources and the movement of Gülen and his followers' considerable financial resources around the world⁹, Fuller alongside other notables like ex-CIA agent George Fidas and former US ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz were there to vouch for him.

Gülen in turn has spoken in sermons about his dreams of something akin to a Neo-Ottoman Empire, stretching from the Mediterranean to China (Xinjiang). Several of his most visible followers in the US are directly involved in Uyghur diaspora activism such as former NBA player Enes Kanter and former Uyghur American Association (UAA) president Kuzzat Altay¹⁰.

But it’s Fuller and Gülen’s link to Turani that is still an open question to me.

In the Xinjiang Problem¹¹, Fuller’s book summarizing the findings of his Rand Corporation study, he wrote of several hypothetical future relationships the United States could have with China.

The recommended response to an ascendent, oppositional China he argued was that the US would do well to learn a lesson from China's past rivals and “play the Uyghur card”, offer support to separatist movements in the diaspora to put pressure on China on the international stage as well as sow dissent and unrest in Xinjiang.

It’s hard not to notice the timing and chain of events after that declaration in 1998 - within a year you had the creation of several of the most prominent American Uyghur groups like the UAA and its subsidiary think tank and policy shop the Uyghur Human Rights Project, both receiving funding from the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy.

Just a few years after that in 2004 you had the culmination of almost a decade of debate and negotiation - the establishment of an umbrella organization for all the disparate Uygur diaspora groups, the World Uyghur Congress. Within a few months of that, seemingly in direct response, was the formation of Rogues Gallery Member Anwar Yusuf Turani's Government in Exile.

While I have found sources¹² claiming the smoking gun connecting all these figures was Graham Fuller's attendance at the September 14 inauguration ceremony for the government in exile in the basement of the US Capitol Building, upon reviewing much of a 5 1/2-hour video recording of these proceedings I sadly cannot corroborate this.

A case could easily be made that someone, somewhere within the US government had heeded Fuller's advice and begun playing the Uyghur Card against China. And with Turani’s access to things like a meeting and photo op with then President Bill Clinton and being allowed to hold the swearing in ceremony for his government in exile in the capitol building, clearly, he was favored by someone powerful at this time.

Absent any hard evidence of this triumvirate’s collusion, I will then posit - would it be in character for these individuals to work together for a shared nefarious purpose?

Do we have evidence of each of these individuals being intimately involved in the organization or funding of terror groups, Uyghur or otherwise? What contacts do they share - activist groups, political parties, politicians?

How far outside the realm of plausibility are we really stepping to make these claims?

My answer - not as far as you may think. As I to work through more long form pieces profiling these individuals, I hope to highlight these ties, but for now I still must concede, I got more smoke than fire.

While providing a bracing introduction to a topic that would soon consume much of my attention, I have largely moved on from Sibel Edmonds and her theories, instead working on my own research and drawing my own conclusions.

Luckily for me in the time since Sibel Edmond’s testimony and writings there have been a number of developments that I believe have shed more light on this conspiracy then her innuendos and oblique references to secret unverifiable knowledge ever did; the fall of ETIM / TIP in Xinjiang and Afghanistan and the rise of Syria as their primary battlefield, the various intrigues and infighting surrounding the East Turkistan Government in Exile and its initial competition with the World Uyghur Congress and subsequent division after Turani’s ousting and most of all evidence of the cooperation between Uyghur diaspora organizations, the intelligence services of US and Turkey in providing support for Uyghur militancy.

Frankly it appears that Mrs. Edmonds herself has moved on from this topic as well - her latest blog site Boiling Frogs Post is now defunct. On the 20th anniversary of 9/11 she spent the day railing against vaccine mandates, failing to mark that grim milestone in American history with any sort of recollection or retrospective of her years long fight to expose some deeper truth about it.

So, in hopes of filling this gap in the discourse allow me to introduce a framing mechanism that I hope to use to order and build upon the research and writing I’ve already done for my twitter audience - my own Rogues Gallery.

Unlike Sibel Edmonds, my hope is to be as direct and upfront in regard to the information that I have on these individuals and the organizations they represent as possible. I will tell you what I know, what I suspect and when I am speculating wildly.

Friends, followers, foreign powers looking to invest in a cost-effective soft power influence operation potential paying subscribers -

Welcome

1. Against All Enemies: Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas (archive.org)

2. Let Sibel Edmonds Speak: Sibel Edmonds on Mike Malloy (archive.org)

3. www.GovExec.com - Quashed Testimony (4/30/04) (archive.org)

4. A Review of the FBI's Actions In Connection With Allegations Raised By Contract Linguist Sibel Edmonds (fas.org)

Williams, P. L. (2018). Operation gladio: The Unholy Alliance between the Vatican, the Cia, and the Mafia. Prometheus Books.

5.

6. ~tx61.ptx (newturkey.today)

7. The Gulen Movement Is Not a Cult -- It's One of the Most Encouraging Faces of Islam Today | HuffPost The World Post

8. Did This CIA Agent Try to Overthrow a Foreign Government? Who Is Graham Fuller? (newsweek.com)

9. Against All Enemies: Court Documents Shed Light on CIA Illegal Operations in Central Asia Using Islam & Madrassas (archive.org)

10. Muslim-Life-in-America.pdf (uucf.org)

11. The Xinjiang Problem (ethz.ch)

12. China and the World: Global Crisis of Capitalism - Ben Mah - Google Books