TREASON IS THE REASON: Mystery spies outed by FBI whistleblower

The US government can be compared to a woman with a horribly disfigured – indeed, a downright grotesque – face, who, nonetheless, manages to hide her increasingly ugly mug with such an array of near-miraculous cosmetics, roseate lighting, and diversionary tactics that the casual observer is fooled into beholding what he believes is a great beauty. But every once in a great while the mask slips at a moment when the lighting is cruelly revealing, and we get a glimpse of the horror that lurks beneath. In the wake of 9/11, federal law enforcement agencies have indeed been seen in a new – and especially cruel – light. Where were they when Osama bin Laden and fellow ghouls were plotting the destruction of the WTC and the Pentagon right here under our noses? The picture that has emerged, at least up until very recently, is one of incompetence on the level of the Keystone Kops, a tragi-comedy of errors – but now, it appears, that is the very least of it….

The mask is slipping badly, now, and the spotlight is shining brightly, revealing not just stupidity, bureaucratic ineptitude, and inter-departmental competition, but also – treason. For nothing less than treason is the reason yet another FBI whistle-blower is making headlines with revelations that make Coleen Rowley's charges of high-level obstructionism in the Zacarias Moussaoui case look relatively innocuous. "2 FBI Whistle-Blowers Allege Lax Security, Possible Espionage," the Washington Post headline modestly avers, but that is putting it rather too mildly. Not since Whittaker Chambers exposed a Stalinist nest high in the topmost branches of the US government has the light been shone on such a deep – and dangerous – penetration of the nation's high security innards. Sibel Edmonds, 32, a former wiretap translator in the FBI's Washington field office, has stepped forward with a shocking narrative of official obstructionism and high-level espionage that breaks down into four stunning accusations:

1) One of her fellow FBI translators, a so-far-unidentified woman, "belonged to the Middle Eastern organization whose taped conversations she had been translating for FBI counterintelligence agents," according to the Post. "This person told us she worked for our target organization," Edmonds says. "These are the people we are targeting, monitoring." This other translator also met with "a foreign official subject to the surveillance." Furthermore, says Edmonds, this woman (and her husband, a military officer) "tried to recruit her to join the targeted foreign group."