Mukraker Report

April 28, 2008 -- Syria, a member of George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil”, is in the spotlight again as an alleged recipient of nuclear technology from North Korea and a potential producer of nuclear weapons.

We have heard it all before but even if it is true, and let us assume it is true, there is more to this accusation than what meets the eye. We need to revisit what the courageous whistleblower, Sibel Edmonds, testified to behind closed doors in the Senate.

Sibel Edmonds’ tenure as a translator for the FBI lasted only six months, but, because of the backlog of the material that needed translation, her effective tenure was about 3 years. The material spanned two very different administrations, that of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

There was a rush to connect the material with a 9/11 cover-up, from the cautious Counterpunch.org to antiwar.com, which entirely missed what Ms. Edmonds had stumbled upon, to The Sunday Times of London that broke the story while maintaining a Rupert Murdochian bias by presenting it as a rogue nuclear proliferation and finished the report by highlighting Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the possibility that such arsenal may fall into the hands of Islamic extremists.

Beyond the “cover your ass” mentality that prevails in our system of civil service, I don’t know what prompted the FBI to dig up all those tapes after 9/11 or what made their translation a priority. In any case, it seems to be a regular Washington business practice to tape the conversations of foreigners and diplomats, and since they were not translated until Ms. Edmonds began working on them, the FBI had, at best, a vague idea of what those recordings contained; had they known the implications, the translations might not have taken place.

Because the material spanned two administrations, it cannot be viewed as strictly related to the 9/11 attacks. It was correctly identified as a nuclear proliferation issue but considered a criminal enterprise. However, it could very well have been a sanctioned operation run by no other than American intelligence with the help of Turkish, Pakistani, Israeli, and maybe even Saudi intelligence.

Our knee-jerk reaction is horror; that Pakistan only sold the nuclear knowledge it siphoned from the U.S. to the axis of evil countries, Korea, through which it trickled to Iran, Libya, and now Syria, while our composed thoughts should ask, how come?

How dangerous is a country with, say one, two, or even ten nuclear warheads? The notion must be terrifying to their immediate neighbors but how about the military value of such an arsenal when the United States is considered the target; the answer is nil.

The net effect of this proliferation effort, originating in the United States, plays right into its hands and serves to perfection the foreign policy it has adopted after 9/11. The only thing that is left is to get these weapons, with plausible deniability, into the hands of Islamic extremists; the destabilizing of Pakistan is next on the American agenda and would be the fuse for a chain of events that would destabilize a region stretching from Pakistan, of the Indian Ocean, to Morocco on the Atlantic Ocean.

What Ms. Edmonds stumbled upon indicates a pattern. What she stumbled upon are facts that generate a narrative and help us understand how this pattern will be allowed to continue and morph into policy.

What else is available that can help us properly qualify the material Ms. Edmonds unveiled?

Other than the fact that the proliferation activities spanned at least two administrations, that of a democrat, Bill Clinton, and a republican, George W. Bush, there are the positions of the two leading contenders for the White House who are out-Bushing Bush and the Neocons any chance they get; we all know where McCain stands.

Hillary is fixated on Iran, while Barak is fixated on destabilizing Pakistan; the net effect is a continuation of the Neocon policy – properly defined would be, official American policy Neocon style – in expanding the axis of evil and giving America the new cold war that would help its international domination.

All the activities that are being carried out, from positions towards Hamas in Palestine, to Hizbollah in Syria, to Al-Sadr and the Mahdi Army in Iraq, to Somalia, Darfur, Eritrea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Turkey, and not opposed by any candidate, are part of a concerted effort to expand the axis of evil into a contiguous swath of land where so called terrorists can roam free and scare the American citizenry into total submission.

The policies of Bush will continue and are very likely to escalate after whoever replaces him.

George W. Bush is no lame duck president. His activities in the Middle East might horrify many in America and around the world. Even some within the democratic establishment are cynically putting out self-serving statements that his actions in Iraq might limit the options for those who would follow him.

No worries folks, it is all by design and Hillary and Barak are only thankful that someone else is paving the road for them so they could get in there, hit the road running and with minimal accountability.

Beware mothers of America, as this might be your last Mothers’ Day without the specter of the draft looming over your heads.