Turkey, Drugs, Faustian Alliances and Sibel Edmonds

Taking Turkey as the focal point and with a start date of 1998, it is easy to speculate why Sibel Edmonds indicated that there was a convergence of US and foreign counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism and US national security and economic interests all of which were too preoccupied to surface critical information warning Americans of the attacks of September 11, 2001. After all, who would have believed drug runners operating in Central Asia? And besides, President Clinton was promoting Turkey, one of the world's top drug transit points, as a model for Muslim-Western cooperation and a country necessary to reshape the Middle East.

The FBI's Office of International Operations, in conjunction with the CIA and the US State Department counter-narcotics section, the United Kingdom's MI6, Israel's Mossad, Pakistan's ISI, the US DEA, Turkey's MIT, and the governments and intelligence agencies of dozens of nations, were in one way or another involved in the illicit drug trade either trying to stop it or benefit from it. What can be surmised from the public record is that from 1998 to September 10, 2001, the War on Drugs kept bumping into the nascent War on Terror and new directions in US foreign policy.

It's easy to imagine the thousands of drug couriers, middlemen, financiers and lab technicians moving back and forth between Pakistan and Turkey, and over to Western Europe and the United States, and the tidbits of information they gleaned from their sponsors as they traveled. As information gathering assets for the intelligence agencies of the world, they must have been invaluable. And given the dozens of foreign intelligence services working in the counter-narcotics/terrorism fields, the "chatter" that just dozens of well-placed operatives may have overheard about attacks against Western targets must have found its way into the US intelligence apparatus. But, again, who could believe the audacity of non-state actors organizing a domestic attack against the supreme power of the day, the USA? Implementing a new strategic direction and business deals may have overcome the wacky warnings from the counter-narcotics folks.

Back in the late 1990's and early 2000, who would have believed the rants of a drug courier from Afghanistan saying that some guy named Bin Laden was going to attack America, particularly if it involved America's newest friend, Turkey? Or that a grand design to reshape Central Asia and the Middle East with Turkey and Israel as pivot points was being pushed by the Clinton Administration as a matter of national policy.

The historical record shows that the US War on Drugs and the nascent War on Terror kept colliding with not only within the US intelligence, policy and business apparatus, but also with European strategic and business interests. Turkey continues its push for entry into the European Union and the USA wants that to happen at the June 2004 meeting of NATO, and President Bush's attendance under dangerous circumstances, in Turkey demonstrates. Turkey is one of the USA's and Europe's top arms buyers and is located near what could be some of the biggest oil and natural gas fields in the world. At this point, it's worth noting that the one of the FBI's tasks is to counter industrial espionage and to engage in it. Where big arms sales pit the US against its European competitors – as is the case in Turkey (particularly starting in 1998) – the FBI is busy making sure the US gets the edge over its competition. Allies are friends only so far.

Did warnings foretelling of an attack on American soil by Bin Laden's crew get lost in the War on Drugs or the US national and economic interest in troublesome Turkey? It seems only Edmonds knows.

Turkey Cold to UK and USA Concerns