Looking For James Bond
Could you spot a secret agent? In the movies you can always tell by the kind of tuxedos they wear, the fancy cars they drive and the impossibly expensive wristwatches they sport. Maybe that’s because the iconic Secret Agent was patterned after an entertainer. Ian Fleming modeled James Bond after Hoagy Carmichael. “Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.”
But in reality surely secret agents are much more low key. However, administration officials have of late been lamenting the absence of the intelligence operatives inside Syria. Ken Dilanian of Los Angeles Times reports that “despite a dire need for intelligence about the groups fighting to overthrow the Syrian government, the CIA has little if any presence in the country, seriously limiting its ability to collect information and influence the course of events, according to current and former U.S. officials.” The reason, according to Dilanian’s sources, was the decision to close the US embassy. “Closing the embassy left the agency without a secure base from which to operate, and CIA personnel left the country, the officials said.”
“We should be on the ground with bucket loads of money renting the opposition groups that we need to steer this in the direction that benefits the United States,” said a former CIA officer who spent years in the Middle East. “We’re not, and good officers are extremely frustrated.”
The CIA declined to comment. When asked about statements that the CIA lacks a presence in Syria, U.S. officials notably do not dispute the idea, talking, instead, about other ways of finding out what is taking place.
“We know a lot more than we did about the Syrian opposition a month ago and much more than we knew six months ago. That’s because of increased contacts diplomatically and through a variety of other means that I’m not going to discuss,” an Obama administration official said.
It’s a funny thought. James Bond operating out of an office in an embassy and driving out each day to meet his contacts, presumably after shaking off his tail. But there it is. The problems of US human intelligence have long been grist for the journalistic mill. A long article in the Atlantic, in two parts (here and here) described an organization staffed by not by spies or secret-agent men of popular conception, but by report-writers who hired locals to do the gumshoeing for them.
Sterling exceptions aside, the average senior officer rose through the hierarchy without ever learning much about the language, culture, or politics of the countries in which he served …
After the Bay of Pigs fiasco, covert action became politically riskier. More important, press revelations during the 1960s and 1970s about various CIA maneuvers of dubious legality and wisdom, followed by several bouts of congressional investigation, helped to sully the Agency’s covert-action credentials. Though covert action continued worldwide in the 1970s, it employed less manpower. Inside the CIA working on covert action no longer had the same prestige, and was becoming a slower track for promotions.
By the time Stansfield Turner became Jimmy Carter’s director of central intelligence, in 1977, the decades-old tug-of-war inside the Agency between covert action and espionage was over. Henceforth covert action would be only an avocation. Espionage [wretchard -- recruiting foreign assets in positions of authority] was the area in which case officers could better manage their destinies.
They were like human resources professionals in a niche line of business. After a time, the article went on to say, they even had recruiter of the month contests with bonuses to match. Officers found candidate spies among the locals and submitted reports of sometimes dubious accuracy upwards. In order to avoid contradicting the State Department’s assessments of the country they were operating in, enterprising CIA officers would sometimes regurgitate State’s point of view, thereby ensuring they made no waves.
This made for a harmony whose defects were little noticed until Osama’s boys came crashing into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11. That provoked an orgy of hearings which led to reforms. Now it is assumed that the problems are fixed. But administration complaints that the CIA have nothing substantial on the ground in Syria are a disturbing indication that the fixes have not gone all the way.
It’s not like the Syrian crisis snuck up on anybody.
Syria has been at or near the top of the list of trouble spots for nearly a decade. The recent troubles have been going on for some months. It has been more than a year since the Arab Spring sent a wave of unrest through the region. So to hear a senior Obama administration say that almost with a sense of resentment that “it’s kind of hard to do a lot until you can get into a country. This issue is the subject of enormous amount of attention and concern” almost invites the response: ‘what have you been doing all this time besides expressing an enormous amount of attention and concern?’
Interestingly, nobody else in the region appears to be having any difficulty running around Syria. Not even journalists.
Several journalists have been spending time with rebel groups in Syria, living and traveling with them for days. But the CIA as a rule has been unwilling to let its officers do that, officials said. There would be no air support and limited rescue capability should the agents get into trouble.
“What are we going to do, just allow the Turks, the Qataris and the Saudis to have relations with opposition groups, and we not have direct relations?” asked Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. “That doesn’t make any sense. Those countries don’t always have our interests at heart.”
So it looks like there’ll be a shortage of intel on the ground, if the administration is to be believed. That is, until they can re-open the embassy. In the meantime, they’re going to have to “allow the Turks, the Qataris and the Saudis to have relations with opposition groups”. Inevitably that means that somebody else is going to run the show with the US looking, whenever it is allowed to, over their shoulders. Maybe that’s why the administration’s strategy is called “leading from behind”.
Belmont Commenters
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Anyone with half a brain (I have half a brain! haha!)knew the arab spring was the muslim brotherhood and the libya thing was more muslim brotherhood. Who wants to tell me the president, with all his assets, has less than half a brain.
We’re backing the syrian “rebels”. And we know more about them than we used to. Why? “That’s because of increased contacts diplomatically”, that is diplomatic contact with, whom,? The muslim brotherhood. We’re backing the muslim brotherhood.
Conspiracy theory? Or Treason?
Keeepp Moving Folks, Nothing to see here. Keeep moving…. And anyone out there really thought the good ole US of A had a CIA that was really anything more than a bottomless pit since the 1960′s? Once again our Academia and Progressive/Liberal Demoncrat’s (Which as esteemed Allen West has said) are communist in great percentage!
“Officers found candidate spies among the locals and submitted reports of sometimes dubious accuracy upwards.”
After 9/11/01 one of things that came out was that the CIA could not pay people for intelligence info unless they were know to be fine, upstanding citizens of impeccable morality and character. Of course this describes almost everyone, worldwide, who wants to rat on his own people.
And if you wanted to pay some scuzzy type for info, or run a mole that had gambling debts or an appetite like Jerry Sandusky’s, then you could still do it. You just had to Okay it through DC, first.
Sen Torcelli, of the Senate Intelligence Committee (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) even said there was no prohibition, just a need to ask permission. The fact that he knew about it indicated to me that the DC permission included his committee.
I laughed long and hard at this, and felt like crying a bit, too. It takes very few years of service in the Feral Government to find out that “Get the approval of HQ first” actually means DO NOT EVER DO THIS OR EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. The lower levels will invariably interpret it thusly. The upper levels will devise a process so long and convoluted as to make it equivalent to stuffing a full grown grapefruit through a half inch garden hose.
BTW, I never comment but I read this blog faithfully. One of my mandatory stops. Richard does a great job! Keep it up, sir.
“Closing the embassy left the agency without a secure base from which to operate, and CIA personnel left the country, the officials said.”
This sounds about right. Certainly no freedom loving militant would balk at the opportunity to rub shoulders with the international community at an embassy black tie gala affair. They could have Cuba Libra’s or better yet, one of those famous Islamist cocktails whose name escapes me right now…Flaming Haji’s?
“We know a lot more than we did about the Syrian opposition a month ago and much more than we knew six months ago…”
That’s right. If you’re willing to wait 6 months or so you’d learn everything you’d need to know by watching CNN. When you are leading from behind, old information is good enough. Only leaders need up to date information. The followers just need to keep an eye on the a$$hole in front of them.
“In order to avoid contradicting the State Department’s assessments of the country they were operating in, enterprising CIA officers would sometimes regurgitate State’s point of view, thereby ensuring they made no waves.”
This reflects the Democratic Party takeover of the agency. One must tread carefully when advancing in the The Party. It works well for those feathering their nest in the bureaucracy. They are loyal only to their own before America and are more focused on the opposition party than external threats. Foreign lands are not where the real action is.
The thought of someone like Valerie Plame (an EEOC hire!) in the bowels of the CIA watching CNN to get intelligence about Syria to report to her boss actually makes me laugh.
Is that CNN in the US or CNN Europe? Because the one in Europe probably has better information. Maybe she should watch Al Jazeera?
Who knows, maybe this person surfs the internet to get intelligence. Maybe this person reads the Belmont Club. Maybe I should shut up. 8)
The CIA never had a chance. It was doomed from inception. Find a copy of “The Armies of Ignorance” by William R. Corson. He covers American intelligence from the revolution until the Carter Administration, which is when he retired.
Truman needed something to replace the OSS post WW2. So there was a bureaucratic turf war between Wild Bill Donovan (OSS) and J Edger Hoover of the FBI. Congress got in the act and a congressman Smith produced an Intelligence Agency on Paper that looked to be the world’s best. The plan didn’t work because there was no place in it for the FBI or OSS. So between them, J. Edger and Wild Bill killed the Smith plan. So Truman did a mash-up. The FBI provided support and logistics while the OSS did the staffing. That is what produced a bureaucratic nightmare of FBI working only in America and the CIA not allowed to work in America. The two bureaucracies make dogs and cats look like bosum buddies.
It would be nice to see the Smith plan dredged up, dusted off and put into play.
A big part of what killed the Smith plan was the Department of State was responsible for running agents in country. They refused. Gentleman don’t read each others mail, you know.
I don’t get it, how often did James Bond check in at the embassy. He just checked in at the Hilton, had the valet bring up his Aston Martin, and away he went.
A top general recently defected to Paris. Do the Syrians fly Mirages, or just MiGs? By the way, how are we supposed to understand the Free Syrian Army – are they regular Syrian army defectors, possibly a Sunni contingent or led by a Sunni contingent, who’ve captured and held arms depots? Are they former Baathists disaffected by Assad and Russian domination, who thought the wave of crumbling old autocracies around them ought to include Assad?
How did the street demonstrations hold against and come back again and again even after T-72s opened live fire on these crowds? How did they keep up morale? Tunisia didnt do that, Egypt didnt do that; Libya was regular army defectors and NATO help, although not ecessarily in that order. The Saudis barely brought out the tanks against the Bahrains, and its common knwledge that Iran was largely fomenting those, and that in any case the population is controlled by tribals hierarchies.
And Syria is not a very big country: patronage need not go that far, and there is surely no real independent commercial actors to build up a real network. We’re talking about a Soviet bloc-style counterintelligence state – one totally surveillance by Russia via Tartus, if nowhere else, on top of that. And then Iran on top of that, with Hezbollah, HAMAS, Islamic Jihad, and who knows who else headquartered in Damascsus.
You’re telling me that against all this, with no real impulse to Federalist Papers ordered democracy among the public and in any case no real means to affect one, that this is some spontaneous and sustained campaign against the Syria-Russia-Iranian regime in Damascus because Toricelli really believed CIA wouldn’t hire “unsavory characters” without asking his permission – but somehow within 5 or 6 years has the network and technology to reach into the Hindu Kush and assassinate individuals in their outhouses?
Sorry I don’t think this makes any sense without NATO government backing. I don’t believe anything in the press – journalists not only get anything right, they only rarely Want to get anything right. Besides, we’ve been right next door in Iraq for 10 years. We couldn’t get into Syria in all that time?
I am still looking for my Aston Martin.
The description of the current agency as a HR department seems spot on. Add that it is the HR department of a community college where people like Valerie Plame dominate office politics.
Remember when Cary Grant played the CIA case officer in “Charade” as an impossible to believe dashing master of intrigue and Walter Mathau played the murderous fake as a far more believable bureaucrat fussing over the spot on his tie and complaining about managing overworked agents with under allocated funds? The McGuffin in the movie was the pathetically small sum of $250,000. They did get the background story of the OSS right, which is more than I’d expect from Hollywood today.
Let us hope this is all a misdirection and the CIA has hundreds of officers in place acting as taxi drivers.
Charlie Wilson’s war is a very interesting book. The CIA guy, Gust Avrakotos was a station chief in Greece. The book goes into some detail about how, as a station chief, he helped keep the communists out. Gust was an interesting guy and it was interesting to read about his tough upbringing in Pittsburgh and journey to the CIA and how he ended up working with Wilson on Afganistan. For some reason I just assumed that all our station chiefs were like Gust in Greece. Oh well… I guess with all these new fangled computers and things we don’t actually need boots on the ground…
Given the consistent cross-threaded bowling ball that is American foreign policy, one has to note that while it is not good under Republicans, it is always far worse under Democrats; q.v. Jamie Gorelick. It has to be part of the list of possibilities under discussion that the incompetence and impotence of our intelligence Apparat is not accidental.
#6 David
Maybe this person reads the Belmont Club.
That is not likely as much of what is here is Thoughtcrime, and is only viewable if you “Get the approval of HQ first” [ see #3 RWE]. (/semi-sarc)
Subotai Bahadur
Lee Smith seems to think that the “somebody closed our embassy” meme is in part the administration’s latest excuse for holding back.
They’re short of something. Exactly what I don’t know.
It seems to me that the wise intelligence bureaucrat will ALWAYS claim to have inadequate resources in-country. That serves 1) to support increased budgets, 2) to provide plausible explanation for incorrect or inadequate product, and 3) get counterintelligence organizations to misunderestimate your real capabilities.
wretchard 13,
The short form, “Boosh did it.”
For other interesting comments on diplomatic-type tidbits, including those of the James Bond variety, I strongly commend the blog of a recently retired DoS-person who put’s forth PoV’s not normally associated with the striped trousers crowd.
Also, it seems to me Obobo’s crowd is in the position of the Japanese High Command when in February, 1942, Captain Koso Nishino – after lobbing 20 or fewer shells from his submarine into a seaside petroleum refinery and destroying practically nothing whatsoever of significance – steamed away from the beach at Goleta, CA, and radioed home he’d “left Santa Barbara in flames”. What is it again about the known unknowns?
Seems to me the energy and will to engage in intrigues is mostly directed inward.
I think the post you’re referring to is Diplomad’s “The State Department and the Muslim Brotherhood”
It made for depressing reading. Could things really be this bad? Maybe it’s just sour grapes. You have ex-CIA operators saying the CIA doesn’t spy. And now you have an ex-diplomat saying that the function of the DoS is basically to mislead itself. Given this, maybe President Obama is correct to “lead from behind”. What else is there to do?
The CIA ideal spy is not named James but Kermit. Kermit worked with Miss Piggy to overthrow a leftist regime in Iran. No. Wait. It was the British he worked with. Kermit Roosevelt (Grandson of Teddy) did such a good job that Obama apologized for it at least a half dozen times that I’m aware of. He should use the events of 1953 as a threat, not a grovel.
I think the CIA keeps bringing up that Iran play as a way of saying, “See, we do stuff.”
mf @ 17: Seems to me the energy and will to engage in intrigues is mostly directed inward.
Internal fantasies, yes, and telling the American people what a swell job he’s done, even with the heavy burden of Boosh, racism, the collapsing Euro, racism, the constant need to turn out more birth certificates, racism, and annoying people bothering him to actually do his job. And racism. And millionaires and billionaires who won’t pay their fair share. And racism.
Like I said, fantasies.
#18 wretchard
It is, from acquaintances. Now add a political command structure that literally hates this country and wishes its destruction as a semblance of a constitutional republic. And a political “opposition” whose main goal is to get a bigger share of the trough and is desperate not to upset the applecart that benefits the Nomenklatura.
We are entering strange, and interesting, times. The continued health of inconvenient people is now already something that actuaries may not choose to bet upon. Using Diplomad‘s formulation [and he is a bloody good man] the Stalin metaphor may become discreetly complete.
Subotai Bahadur
“administration officials have of late been lamenting the absence of the intelligence operatives inside Syria.”
THEY MAY BE LYING in order to protect secret agents inside of Syria. It’s a clever trick- like pretending you are always broke when really you have money. Don’t believe them.
“the average senior officer rose through the hierarchy without ever learning much about the language, culture, or politics of the countries in which he served”
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote a song – When I Was a Lad – which has lyrics that are very insulting to the British Navy.
I don’t want to believe our government is like that… only protecting their jobs, while not serving the people who look up to them as respected leaders.
Josh & Subotai
It’s got me looking at sailboats…Again.
#22 Baobo
I don’t want to believe our government is like that… only protecting their jobs, while not serving the people who look up to them as respected leaders.
With all due respect, what country are you in and what government is “our” government?
Both by polling, and by personal experience, it is apparent that one of our problems is that we have NO government leaders, and only a very few military leaders; who have the trust and respect of the American people. And not all of those deserve what they have. There are a few politicians in office who are not quite as bad as the rest, but that is damning faint praise at best.
TWANLOC. We are governed, and our institutions run, by TWANLOC.
Subotai Bahadur
I think 0bumbler and the clown posse have finally figured out that history will blame them for losing Egypt, just as Carter lost Iran. So they are going with the French strategy of doing nothing in Syria, thinking that way they can avoid the blame. I don’t think any of them have figured it out that Carter did nothing too.
The Muslim Brotherhood will either give the people what they want or they will go the way of Mubarak. Egyptians have had a taste of power, now they want a meal. The only real question is ‘how long will it take?’
Hill-de-beast might be a worse SoS then Maddy Halfbright.
Wretchard #18:
While at the Pentagon I became aware of the a State Dept concept called the “non-paper.”
A non-paper is a formally staffed document you send to another government to give your position on some issue. But it amounts to a rough draft that has plausible deniability. If the other country reacts negatively to the non-paper you can just tell them that some idiot produced it and somehow let it get out of the department without permission. And that as soon as the miscreant is identified he will be reassigned as special representative to the bears on Baffin Island, and we are terribly sorry that you were subjected to this lunatic’s mad ravings.
If this is normal business for that department imagine what they can do with some extra effort, an example being Hillary’s big “Reset’ button that actually was labeled “Overcharge” in Russian.
Arab pride is at an all-time low. Allah is not fighting for them, so they believe that Allah does not accept their Islam. Their standard of living is way behind the west. And they want American-style democracy and basic freedoms.
Military, Theocracy and Strongman governments have failed them. That is why there is an Arab spring.
America doesn’t have a proxy interest with Syria. They are not a real threat to Israel. There’s no Darfur-like humanitarian crisis taking place.
The pride-thing and no compelling proxy interest are exactly why America needs to stay out. We don’t have a dog in this fight.
NOC, NOC. “Who’s there?” Nobody since the Church hearings.
Break up the CIA already. Hand the Analysis to the NSA, and the Covert (what’s left of it) to Special Forces at the Pentagon. Fire everyone else.
Wretchard – The 1998 Atlantic articles to which you linked were credited to “Edward G. Shirley”. This is the former pen name of Reuel Marc Gerecht, former CIA case officer in Turkey and currently a fellow at FDD (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/about-fdd/team-overview/senior-fellow/). His classic critique of the CIA was “Operations that include diarrhea as a way of life don’t happen (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/the-counterterrorist-myth/2263/)“.
It is interesting that he recently penned a full throated call for the CIA to overthrow Assad in WSJ (http://www.defenddemocracy.org/media-hit/to-topple-assad-unleash-the-cia/).
I should think that any organization which has embodied Turner’s focus on excellence in bean counting together with Clinton’s substitution of electronics for agents would never be confused with anything related to Bond or Hollywood legends.
One need not even mention Church. Nor, of course, that all future Presidents will surely be briefed on how very close Tower came to his goal of impeaching and removing Bill Casey’s boss.
When hopes otherwise become overwhelming after a good book or movie, I personally find that repeating “Sarova” 15 times by exact count is quite sufficient to instantly bring back reality – front and center.
“somebody closed our embassy” meme – weak excuse. The perceptive Jon Spyer of Barry Rubin’s GLORIA Center recently traveled discreetly to Syria and met with many FSA officers (http://50.56.48.50/article/defying-dictator-meet-free-syrian-army).
If USG had been focused on regime change in Syria we would have developed local assets and identified and/or built relationships w/potential alternate leaders, a process which could have, in part, been run from the embassy for years before its closure in FEB 2012. Hopefully the US or some trustworthy ally does have some such assets and relationships.
When Sen Dianne Feinstein says publicly that someone in the White House has leaked intelligence information for political gain you know the worm has truly turned. Of course someone got to her a day later and she is now trying to walk the statement back, but the cat is out of the bag and his name is not Wretchard.
A group of Special Ops retirees has had enough and has formed an organization to try to counterbalance the leaky White House. Their web site is at Give it a look.
F
#7 – Corson’s “The New KGB” was a worthwhile study.
My own belief, as I’ve written before, is that if you’re going to lead, then lead from the front. If you are going to change the regime in Egypt, put your own man in charge. If you’re going to topple Assad, pick out the people who will be in the successor regime.
Otherwise resist regime change. Do you want it or not? Simple question.
This not a radical idea. If you are going to buy something, which of us doesn’t want to pick the merchandise? Once you’ve decided to get married, for God’s sake, pick the bride.
That is why this whole business of “leading from behind” sounded like a bad joke. If Egypt was led by a dictator. Topple him and put in a competent moderate. Don’t topple him and put the Muslim Brotherhood in and then say, “well we wanted to get married, but we let somebody else pick the bride. And we’re not happy with the choice but we’ll always abide by the will of the Egyptian people.” The will of the Egyptian people is the Egyptian President’s problem. President Obama was hired to pursue the interests of the United States. And not content to having it happen in Egypt, they’re fixing to do it again in Syria.
You couldn’t find an imbecile who would do this. But if you found someone who thought himself smart enough, he just might.
Now that Assad is on the ropes, they want him out but don’t want to dirty their hands in the process. So they’re going to leave the picking to the Saudis and maybe the Turks. Well don’t complain if they order an item you didn’t like off the menu. Because you’re going to have to eat it.
As to unleashing the CIA, you either unleash them or you don’t. What is this business about getting intelligence but being afraid to do it by spying on Syria? And then announcing your qualms in the NYT or the Washington Post. It’s a marvel Assad isn’t dead already — from laughter.
Where does this kind of thinking come from? Alas, I think I know. And there’s more where it came from.
Once upon a time, well probably up until about 1980, governments understood that their prime, and almost their only duty, was to do what was best for their people. If toppling a dictator served the interest of the USA, then that was a valid reason for the President to act, covertly or otherwise. If balancing out the foreign powers so they beat each other to bits served one’s own interest, then so be it, hand out arms or money or whatever, just so long as we come out on top. How did we get to this idea that governments should do what is good for other people (even assuming they are right,) whether it is good for their own people or not?
And as for signing up local agents, who on earth would want to be an agent of the USA when they drop you in the soup and 25 years in clink? The first rule of good intelligence must surely be loyalty to one’s agents.
There are two parts to a spy – secret and agent. You are supposed to be secretly acting as an agent for a foreign power. When your deception is exposed, people get annoyed – see Benedict Arnold and Kim Philby.
If the foreign power that you are working for routinely sells its spies down the river (the Obama River), then those with spying tendencies will look for other foreign employers.
How many spies are working in Syria for the Brits, the Turks, the French, the Saudis, the Iraquis, the Iranians, the Egyptians, the Israelis and the Russians? I’m guessing enough to fill the dance floor at the Strange Range in Yellowknife.
But the CIA is apparently good at report writing. Shades of “Our Man in Havana” and “The Tailor of Panama”?
The leftists march through the important institutions of the USA has given them control of a sort. However they have produced and introduced people into those institutions whose arrogance is surpassed by the their ignorance and left them convinced that they are intellectuals. Alternative Media is eroding the forts of feces that concealed their anti-Americanisms and their base stupidity and duplicity. A poll will come out and it will say, Obama is ahead, a blog will say look they over sampled the Democrats showing more in 2012 than there were in 2008 and even more than there were in 2010. Newsweak is now all digital and will probably soon be another ghost site on the Internet.
This is a link to a juvenile but effective undercover operative.
How to spot an American secret agent:
1) Go to an American Embassy abroad.
2) Look for the guy asking about yellowcake uranium while sitting by the pool.
3) Bingo!
The clincher is if his wife sent him.
This sorry episode brings to mind the bitter recriminations that flared for several years after Mao Zedong’s People’s Army swept the Kuomintang and Chang Kai-shek from the Mainland to the relative safety of Taiwan.
“Who Lost China?!?”
That whole debate segued more or less directly to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and the national inquiry into the penetration of Communist Agents into our government and culture.
(…the present administration being the final emphatic proof that, yes, the Communists WERE behind every tree and bush!)
Unlike the current crop of adolescents, the politicians of that day for all their human flaws, had some spine. The mental pygmies peeing on the White House carpets now don’t have the mental watts to light the standby LED on an iPad, nor the audacity needed to jaywalk in the business district on a Sunday morning.
Any pack of Webelows has accumulated more sheer practical knowledge of organization and management, and the nerve needed to triumph over adversity.
Next time we have an election, let’s try to be sure we have a few candidates at least as experienced and qualified as a first-year Cub Scout.
I demand the right to see an activity badge.
Of course, this could all be the outcome that the Obama Administration actually wanted.
Remember that they identify with Third World type populism. Maybe they don’t think the Muslim Brotherhood is as bad as others do. They said it is mostly secular now, right?
So that’t the analysis out of the present NSC, and Hillary! is of course, re-assured that “all is proceeding as planned”.
Mubarak, a central pillar of our political policy in the ME for decades? Get rid of him! Of course, the Bush Administration wanted him to reform too. But George at least had the good sense not to go to Cairo and make a blithering fool of himself. Let’s reset that speech too, while we are at it.
And who can forget the “Vogue” article about how wonderful the Assad family was? Who can make this mis-information disappear down the memory hole? Because this article was part of the prelude of the Peace offensive by Barack and Hillary! to reshape the Middle East.I wonder what the poor Lebanese think about all this nonsense? Anyone think to ask them?
Leading from behind? It’s just that no one wants to follow where Obama and friends want to lead.
Exit question. With the MB gathering power in Egypt, where is Dr. Zawahiri? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he re-appeared in Egypt as a returning hero? That was afterall, part of the Al Qaeda plan, for Zawahiri to lead the caliphate of Egypt. Plans within plans.
Hey, is anybody else getting these popup/popunders from pjmedia?
Been getting worse for a month. Somehow they’re getting through most of the time, and just blinking the browser other times. The trigger on PJMedia seems to move around.
Hey PJMedia, you’ve either been infected, or I hope you haven’t explicitly sold these fourth-rate advertisers space.
Syria claims to have all this poison gas. We could gas the lot of them and claim it was a leak at the weapons depot.
peace in the middle east at last! (please don’t actually do this. or at least, don’t blame me for it later)
“We should be on the ground with bucket loads of money renting the opposition groups that we need to steer this in the direction that benefits the United States….”
Anybody here remember the last time our CIA or State Department with their bucket loads of money ever succeeded in steering anything in a direction that benefited the United States?
I don’t, but I’m open for reminders.
Josh…
I suspect that the popunders are screen proxies for mutant trojan key loggers.
For they can’t logically promote any sales as they stay hidden in the back round.
My Mac used to lock-up in the weirdest manner while posting, and only then, until this latest generation of minder cropped under.
Suppressing bad news at any level of reporting to HQ is not a special feature of State Department, it is fairly universal for every bureaucracy in the world. But in Arab world it is so grotesque that at the 6th day of Six Day War Egypt HQ still got triumphant reports from encircled or destroyed divisions and send marsh orders to these non-existent regiments. Much help did it gave them!
The first step in protecting us from the popunder trojans is blocking commenting by bots like dasfdsfsd @ 48. Someone mentioned before someplace that the extreme Left support base for the Democrats is tied to the Hacker/IT community. Move On was founded by the people who wrote “Flying Toasters.” It is not to paranoid to think that a crazy paranoid group like them would target PJM for spam, bot, worm and DNS attacks. Can lawyers find someone to sue over this?
wretchard@35 said: “My own belief, as I’ve written before, is that if you’re going to lead, then lead from the front. If you are going to change the regime in Egypt, put your own man in charge. If you’re going to topple Assad, pick out the people who will be in the successor regime.”
Based on the information currently available it appears that we may have attempted to do precisely what you suggest – put our guy (actually Saudi’s guy) in charge via a coup from within.
Recall all the recent talk from our SOS, NATO sources, and even from the Russians – in retrospect, what they were saying makes sense if they expected Assad to be quickly replaced via a coup.
Apparently the first phase of the coup was the defection of its leader, so that he could coordinate with the powers opposing Assad and assure their support for his leadership of the new Syria. This phase went well. Manaf Tlass has been assured by the Saudi’s that he has the support of the anti-Assad alliance for the top position in the new Syrian regime.
However, as it happened, Assad’s loyalists acted first. They took out the plotters, including Assad’s brother in law and the Defense Minister, before they could implement stage two.
It appears that Manaf’s first try failed. Perhaps he has a second team to replace the one he lost last week. I guess we shall see.
Humint has been a weakness of the Republic, going back to it’s inception.
Most of our useful intelligence on this region has come from what the Brits and the Israelis have been willing to share with us.
In that community, we are respected for our sigint and overhead capabilities and are pretty much a laughingstock for everything else. They respect our wealth.
Has been so for my lifetime and see little prospect for change in the future.
Bright note: our technological achievements seem to be advancing the cause of internal security.
Best regards, JW
The US has been in a dangerous leadership situation since the early 1990′s, not talking necessarily “President” leadership but the “clog’s” of Government leadership, simply look at the problems George W. Bush had when trying to do nearly anything… If it wasn’t a Intelligence leak it was a Department of State leak, if it wasn’t a Intel/DoS leak it was a Congressional leak, Yes our College educated worker bee’s who have been anti-American since the sixties are the “Government” and the pro American leader hasn’t got a chance!
Wretchard #35:
It has been said that the Pentagon resembles a log floating down the Potomac, its direction entirely at the whim of the current, with 25,000 ants on board, all of whom are yelling directions as to the proper course and under the impression that they can influence it to some degree.
The difference is that all of the other logs in DC are stuck in the eddies and swirls or aground on the bank and all of the ants thereupon are telling each other they are right where they ought to be.
ScenarioA…
As coup scenarios…
Yours is nonsense on stilts…
For the terminated crew were the who’s who of Assad’s supporters.
Never, in all history, has a family rejected its own in favor of a fellow traveller.
Further, despots don’t blow up headquarters — they arrest and execute traitors to the cause.
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The primary European power for Syria has been France…
She’s a ‘legacy.’
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Since Assad does not have serious wealth ( Arab style ) — just how long can he keep up – financially – his repression campaign.
I strongly suspect that – in money terms – he’s ALREADY in bunker mode.
Hence, his redeployment of ‘static’ formations thither and yon.
I expect him to start printing — big time — to cover his tab.
Look for Putin & Co to finance his fuel expenses — perhaps in a major way. An air force is a fuel pig!
Wretchard @18: “It made for depressing reading. Could things really be this bad?”
They are not only bad. They are worse than you can possibly imagine.
We have all of the information we need for effective security and advancement of national interst. The problem is we do not put any of it to good use. We missed all the signs coming from Syria and are still playing the naval version of chicken with Iran in the Persian Gulf.
How did we miss the obvious from Major Hassan or perhaps from Holmes as well? We have become a nation of cubicle drones playing office politics instead of focusing on the job.
The terrorist bombing at the Bulgarian airport could have easily happened here. It would not have happened at an Israeli airport. An Israeli expert explains based on the airport video of the bomber:
“There was nothing normal about his behavior! Yes, there are passengers who are worried at airports but the specific behavior of this particular man is shocking for a trained security agent. He was constantly walking back and forth with two heavy bags, one on his bag, and one on his stomach that he didn’t put on the floor even for a second. And he was totally alone! Passengers don’t just walk around all the time, they sit, rest, put their bags on the floor…. On top of that, he was at the Arrival terminal but didn’t give an impression of waiting for anybody. And he didn’t talk to anybody. He just didn’t behave normally. The bomber in Bulgaria had a forged ID, right? This is a huge sign. Why didn’t the border control people notice that? Today there are scanners that can identify immediately a forged ID. This is a machine but it gives a huge advantage when used by a thinking border officer. Even without the machine – you look at the personal data, the birth date and whether it corresponds with the person’s age. If the passport is real, check out the visas. If this person has been across half of the Arab world, including Afghanistan or Pakistan where we know there is training for terrorists, this would be a red light – interrogate these people more thoroughly!” Yafet elaborated.
Well he wasn’t doing anything wrong was he? Not like he was smoking or something.
Spindok…
I strongly suspect that the USN is deployed to BLOCK Bibi not the mullahs.
The Wan doesn’t want to have any October surprises other than his own.
As for Tehran: their primary concern is to scare the price of crude up at every turn — but never to actually trigger hot war with the American DoD.
Where is an Eli Cohen when you need him?
Could you spot a secret agent? In the movies you can always tell by the kind of tuxedos they wear
FWIW: I was told years ago that CIA and KGB agents stationed in Berlin often did have “uniforms”. The CIA wore black suits (Men in Black! Imagine that!), and the KGB wore gray ones. Apparently, under certain circumstances that are not clear to me, each side did need/want to be able to identify their opposites. I think it was meant as a safety measure in case of inadvertant gunplay, or something. Go figure.
I always wondered why my father, the State Department “Vice Consul” in the “sensitve” consular location so often wore severe black suits that made him look like a priest or a Mormon elder. I distinctly remember him scoffing at the gunplay in the Bond films, and alluding to “the real rules.”
German intelligence: al-Qaeda all over Syria
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG24Ak02.html
blert@54 wrote: “ScenarioA… As coup scenarios… Yours is nonsense on stilts…”i
The coup scenario @50 is not original with me. My initial reaction to it was identical to yours. But based on current information (my opening disclaimer @50), whether or not it reflects reality, it is surely not nonsense. In that spirit I offered it to the bc community.
blert continued: “For the terminated crew were the who’s who of Assad’s supporters.”
No!! Multiple sources have placed members of the ‘terminated crew’ as THE top suspects in any potential coup. I recall speculation in a French source back in early 2011 that Assef Shawkat, who had a falling out with Assad over an attempted coup in 2008, might use the ‘arab spring’ for another coup attempt.
More recently, STRATFOR’s immediate reaction to the July 18 bombing included:
“Those targeted in the bombing — Syrian Defense Minister Dawoud Rajha, former Defense Minister Hassan Turkmani, Interior Minister Mohammad al-Shaar, National Security Council chief Hisham Biktyar and Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat (the president’s brother-in-law, who was rumored to have been killed by the regime prior to the blast) – were top suspects in a palace coup scenario” (my emphasis).
There is much more I could say, but in the interests of bevity, I hope the above is sufficient to refute the claim that the coup scenario is simply ‘nonsense on stilts.’
Historically in Eastern Europe you could spot the secret or not so secret police because they were the guys wearing jackets with leather buttons and good watches and shoes from America or Western Europe. US tobacco is also a tell.
Unfortunately James Bond types are rare and desired out of government service in a capitalist society. We have however a bumper crop of guys like Nigel Smallfoot.
Believe that this is 4/4.
Josh @ 43 said:
“Hey, is anybody else getting these popup/popunders from pjmedia? Been getting worse for a month… ”
Ghostery, Linux and OS-X suppresses most of that garbage. Go to http://www.ghostery.com/ If you’re using MS-Windows then you’re probably already out-of-luck and your machine loaded with viruses, spyware, etc. Avoid Microsoft products or only run them within a virtual machine on a decent operating system (Linux!). Simply using anti-virus software on an MS-Windows machine is not good enough. This is particularly true if you’re being targeted by professional hackers which would be the case if you’re a regular at pjmedia.
Sorry for the 5th post. Lesson is that you can’t copy and paste Youtube™ rtsp links from the BBerry.
Here is the link I meant.