Chris Floyd: Sibel Edmonds, the Bomb and Political Animals

The Bomb in the Shadows: Proliferation, Corruption and the Way of the World -- Written by Chris Floyd This week, the Sunday Times lifted the lid on one of the most important stories of the last quarter-century: how American officials sold nuclear arms technology to illegal proliferators -- including ideological allies of al Qaeda -- in return for bribes and other inducements. This widespread corruption has been protected from exposure by the highest levels of the U.S. government, which has gone to enormous lengths to protect the truth from coming out. The entire planet has been put at grave risk by the greed -- and geopolitical gamesmanship -- that lies behind this criminal enterprise, which actually is even more extensive, and goes back further in time, than the newspaper's remarkable revelations. The Sunday Times story is based on the evidence provided by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, who has been subjected to an unprecedented campaign of state-enforced muzzling by the Bush Administration since she first tried to speak out about the corrupt connections between American officials and foreign agents she discovered when reviewing transcripts associated with the 9/11 investigation. As even the leaders of the whitewashing 9/11 Commission themselves now admit, that investigation was deliberately sabotaged by the Bush Administration – in part to cover up the nuclear proliferation network that has directly or indirectly enriched so many in the American elite over the past decades – including the sitting president of the United States, George W. Bush...(use link to read the rest) This is the way the world works. Behind the glitz and gossip of presidential campaigns, behind all the earnest "policy debates" on Capitol Hill, behind all the "position papers" and "vision statements" of think tanks and political parties, behind all the great panoply of state and our august Establishment institutions, thieves and murderers have their way, in league with the great and good. Anyone who ascends to national power has to make a deal with the devil: either directly to plunge their hands into filth and blood, or else swaddle themselves in "plausible deniability," looking away from the grubby details but knowing full well that their minions, agents and backers are doing "whatever it takes" to keep the machine of power and money rolling on. This doesn't mean that leaders can't also try to do good things as well, and occasionally accomplish them. After all, Al Capone was famous for his acts of benevolence. Indeed, some leaders pursue idealistic or ameliorative policies in order to "justify" the crimes and lies that sustain the system which has raised them on high. But the devil will have his due, and the price of power must always be paid – and it is ordinary people, especially the most innocent and vulnerable among us, who always end up paying it.