Don’t Look Now
Posted: 30 April 2013 Filed under: Foreign policy, International Situations, Military | Tags: Al-Qaeda, Armed Conflict, CIA, Jordan, Syria, US Troops 10 Comments »While the whole world was focused on the massacre and subsequent manhunt in Boston….there was a little reported occurrence…..
Source:StratRisks
The Pentagon is sending about 200 soldiers from a U.S. Army headquarters unit to Jordan to assist efforts to contain violence along the Syrian border and plan for any operations needed to ensure the safety of chemical weapons in Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told Congress Wednesday.
The decision to dispatch the 1st Armored Division troops of planners and specialists in intelligence, logistics and operations comes as several lawmakers pressed the Obama administration for even more aggressive steps to end the two-year civil war.
Hagel and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced persistent questions from senior members of the Armed Services Committee about efforts to force out Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Pentagon leaders made clear that the situation is extremely complicated and they must be certain of the endgame before any military step to try to end the bloodshed.
“You better be damned sure. No-fly zone, safe zone. Once you’re in, you can’t unwind it,” Hagel said.
Dempsey said he has spent a significant portion of his adult life trying to figure out the Mideast. “This is the toughest of all,” he said.
Hagel said the fresh troops will replace a similar number of U.S. forces that have been in Jordan for some months. They also will provide leadership personnel that could command additional forces if it’s determined they are needed in the future.
And then there is even more disturbing news…..
These are now astonishingly the very areas the US CIA is overseeing the flow of thousands of tons of weapons and aid – aid that is clearly falling almost entirely into the hands of Al Qaeda’s Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.
The New York Times in their article titled, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With C.I.A. Aid,” admits that:
With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders.
The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari military-style cargo planes landing at Esenboga Airport near Ankara, and, to a lesser degree, at other Turkish and Jordanian airports.
While the West attempts to claim these weapons are being sent to “moderates,” the US State Department itselfadmits that Al Qaeda is operating in every major city in Syria, carrying out hundreds of terrorist attacks, and is by far the most highly organized, most prominent militant front in the conflict. If the West via Saudi Arabia and Qatar is sending thousands of tons of weapons to “moderates,” who is sending more weapons to Jabhat al-Nusra?
I have said all along that the war in Syria would eventually spill out to bordering countries like Lebanon, Jordan and eventually Israel………we are now getting close to that prediction……
We need to worry! For this could come back to bite us in the ass like Afghanistan…….
Poor Judgment
Posted: 20 November 2012 Filed under: Elections, Observations, Politics | Tags: Cartoon, CIA, Political Humor 4 Comments »
Murder Is Not Suicide
Posted: 21 January 2010 Filed under: Foreign policy, International Situations, Military, News, War | Tags: CIA, Deaths, Gitmo, Terrorists, Torture, US Troops 7 Comments »Do you remember the three Gitmo detainees that commited suicide on the same day in 2006? NO? Then let us review…….
After the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA set up several so-called ”black” sites around the world, where harsh interrogations of terrorism suspects took place.
The three Guantanamo detainees who died on the night of June 9-10, 2006, were Salah Ahmed al-Salami, 37, of Yemen; Mani Shaman al-Utaybi, 30, of Saudi Arabia; and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, 22, of Saudi Arabia.
Everyone bought the excuse of their deaths as routine for crazed terrorists….but it seems there is more to this story than we have heard….now thanx to Harper’s magazine the truth is coming out…..
THREE Guantanamo Bay detainees whose deaths were ruled as suicide in 2006 were apparently transported from their cells to a secret site hours before they died, according to an article in Harper’s magazine.
The published account raises questions about whether the three detainees died by hanging themselves in their cells and suggests the US Government is covering up details of what precisely happened in the hours before the deaths.
Harper’s reports that the deaths of the three detainees, or the events that led directly to their deaths, most likely occurred at a previously undisclosed facility more than a kilometre from the main Guantanamo Bay prison complex.
Harper’s based much of its account on interviews with several prison guards who said they knew of the existence of the ”black” site and that they saw three detainees removed from Camp Delta several hours before the deaths were reported and they were in a white van proceeding towards the secret site.
As usual the soldiers involved were order not to divulge anything about this situation and the cover up began and those who murdered these people are walking the streets and may be shopping at your local Mall.
The Spy Game
Posted: 7 January 2010 Filed under: Government, News, War | Tags: Afghanistan, Armed Conflict, CIA, Intel Gathering, Spies 3 Comments »Recently the CIA had a brain fart and let 7 of their best people in Afghanistan get popped…..this in my opinion was a STUPID mistake…I mean last year one of the many princes of Saudi Arabia was almost killed by a “butt bomb”….a bomb canceled in the rectum of a suicide bomber…..these people are ingenious and yet they let a double agent waltz into a meeting with the top Afghan analysts and blow his ass up taking the CIA operatives with him……
Let’s ask…..other than that professor how is the CIA doing in Afghanistan?
CNN reported on the testimony of CIA:
U.S. spies “can do little but shrug” when commanders ask for the information they need to fight the Taliban insurgency, the top U.S. military intelligence officer in Afghanistan said in a blistering report.U.S. military intelligence officers in Afghanistan spend too much time focusing on enemy groups and tactics and not enough on trying to understand Afghanistan’s culture, people and networks, Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn wrote in a report published Monday.
American military intelligence gathering is “ignorant of local economics and landowners, hazy about who the powerbrokers are and how they might be influenced, incurious about the correlations between various development projects and levels of cooperation among villagers, and disengaged from people in the best position to find answers,”
The report said some good work is being done on the ground, and that local intelligence officers “know a great deal about their local Afghan districts.” But, the report said, they “are generally too understaffed to gather, store, disseminate and digest” information.
And, critically, they do not have the resources to gather information which could give Americans a better understanding of Afghanistan, such as census data, patrol debriefs, minutes from councils with local farmers and tribal leaders, polling data, translated summaries of radio broadcasts that influence local farmers and the like.
I would say that it is a bit of a critical report on the CIA operations in Afghanistan…….the people on the ground SUCK and then the only ones that have experience they allow to be killed…..sounds like an agency that has its head up some bureaucrats ass…..and does not sound like a way to win the war for minds and hearts…..if they cannot deal with trivial info, how can they handle important stuff?
Who Was The Genius?
Posted: 5 January 2010 Filed under: Government, International Situations, News, War | Tags: Afghanistan, CIA, Intel Agencies, Intel Gathering, Operatives, Suicide Bombers, Terrorists, War On Terror 5 Comments »This is NOT the way to win the War on Terror!
By now the airwaves are lit up like a Xmas tree with the news of the 8 CIA operatives killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan….if not here is the deal…..as reported by ABC News:
The officers who were killed in the attack were at the heart of the United States’ effort against senior members of al Qaeda and the Taliban, former intelligence officials say. They collected intelligence on the militant commanders living on both sides of the border and helped run paramilitary campaigns that tired to kill those commanders, including the drone program that has killed a dozen senior al Qaeda with missiles fired from unpiloted aircraft.
The only victim of the attack who has been publicly identified is 37-year-old Harold Brown Jr., a father of three. The base chief, a woman in her 30s, was also killed, according to current and former intelligence officials. She is believed to have been focused on al Qaeda since before 9/11. A former U.S. official says a second woman was also killed in the attack, and that both women had “considerable counterintelligence experience.”
The attack also killed Captain Al Shareef Ali bin Zeid, a member of the Jordanian spy agency Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Ammah, according to people who have spoken with bin Zeid’s family. The Jordanian military released a statement acknowledging bin Zeid had been killed in Afghanistan, but did not mention he was working with the CIA.
Now this is my favorite quote from the ABC report:
“Because of this attack, the CIA will be very, very careful about who it trusts, how it vets its agents, how it searches its agents,” Clarke says. “And this will mean that in the future, it will be much more difficult for CIA to operate in the field because of probably new security roles affecting what they do.”
Ya think?!? The genius of the people just amazes me……
Now my question is…..who was the f*cking genius that put 8 CIA operatives in the same room with an informant, a untried informant? In my day the best an informant would have gotten is one maybe two low level operatives….reminds me of Reagan, “trust but verify”…….once the info was verified as good then meet with the biggies…..but to put the people with the most knowledge of the situation in the same room with a suicide bomber, which, btw, was not searched….is just plain STUPID!
I am NOT condemning the whole organization….just the mental midget that put all those operatives in the same location as the informant….if he had not blown himself up….we would have still be able to ID the people in the room……who was the pea brain? That is the question that should be asked……
If you truly want to win the War on Terror then stupid is NOT the way to go……….
Since the nature of the beast is secrecy….we may NEVER know who the mental midget was…….but I hope he/she NEVER gets another nights sleep…..”you cannot fix STUPID!”
A Thug On The Payroll
Posted: 29 October 2009 Filed under: Foreign policy, News, War | Tags: Afghanistan, CIA, Crime, Intel Gathering, Intelligence 6 Comments »Daily Agitator
I read an article in the NY Times and then I heard a news bite on the tube about the story.
President Karzai’s younger half brother, long accused of links to the drugs trade, was embroiled in fresh controversy today after The New York Times reported that he had been on the CIA’s payroll for the last eight years.
Ahmad Wali Karzai had been paid by the agency for services including arranging contacts with the Taleban and helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force in the southern city of Kandahar where he lives, the newspaper said.
He was also paid for allowing the CIA, US special forces and the local militia, called the Kandahar Strike Force, to use a large compound outside the city — the former home of Mullah Omar, the Taleban’s founder — it said.
There seems to be a bit of a quandry in the news……I heard some of the pundits concerned that CIA may have a thug like this guy on their payroll……(thinking)……I ask who do you think would be on the CIA payroll? Nun? Or perhaps a priest or two?
Are you people stupid or just doing a few downers?…..Of course CIA has thugs like this a/hole on the payroll….how do you think they get things done in the shadowy world of espionage? CIA has ALWAYS had thugs on its payroll; if you want someone whacked you do not call on a preacher to do it for you…please people pay attention….you cannot be as naive as these pundits seem to be…..
Now thanks to the NY Times, this guy will be looking over his shoulder for the next thug to step up and do his job….and there is a possibility that that guy will also be on the CIA payroll. This guy’s brother, the pres of Afghanistan, might want to try and remember history a bit…..the pres of South Vietnam, Diem, was whacked by CIA thugs…they did not like his way of handling things in the country…..keep an eye on history…..my only suggestion for Karzai…..
Drama At The CIA
Posted: 7 January 2009 Filed under: Government, News, Politics | Tags: Appointments, CIA, Obama, Political Tactics, Political Trickery, US Senate Leave a comment »President-elect Barack Obama phoned key lawmakers to defend the selection of Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency and quell concerns over Mr. Panetta’s lack of first-hand intelligence experience.
In his first public comments on intelligence matters since the election, Mr. Obama also promised that his intelligence team would break from Bush administration practices that he said had “tarnished” the government’s image.
A formal announcement of Mr. Panetta’s nomination is expected later this week.
The two senators, the top Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, chastised Mr. Obama on Monday for not choosing an intelligence professional for the job and not telling them of his plans to nominate Mr. Panetta. The intelligence committee will hold confirmation hearings for Mr. Panetta and the expected nominee for director of national
Only two CIA directors in the past three decades — Robert Gates in the administration of George H.W. Bush and current CIA Director Michael Hayden — have held senior intelligence posts prior to appointment. Outsiders are frequently selected to be CIA director, with mixed results.
The senators that are the most vocal in opposition were Bush collaborators. They white washed the intelligence to allow the invasion of Iraq. Their lax oversight has given the country more grief than they have given good news. Especially Feinstein who championed such stuff as the Iraq War, FISA and the Patriot Act.
The truth is that their feelings were hurt because they were not consulted in the pick. But why would Obama , who wants change, seek counsel from the very people that are the problem in the intel community?
The French Chef Was A Spy
Posted: 15 August 2008 Filed under: History, Military, News | Tags: CIA, Spies Leave a comment »Where do you look when you want to recruit spies? Just about everywhere, judging from the formerly top-secret records of the World War II agency that became today’s CIA.
There was the young woman who became TV chef Julia Child. And labor lawyer Arthur Goldberg who became a Supreme Court justice. And young scholar Arthur Schlesinger who became a presidential adviser.
The legendary chef is one of several high-profile figures who were involved with the undercover World War II intelligence agency, called the Office of Strategic Services.
Yesterday, the National Archives released the names of Americans who worked as civilian and military spies for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II.
Along with Child, other spies for the OSS include former Chicago White Socks catcher Moe Berg, Godfather actor Sterling Hayden, and author Thomas Braden who penned Eight is Enough, the book that inspired the popular 1970s television series.
Where have you people been? This is common knowledge. Julia even spoke about it in many interviews over the years before her death. May I suggest that you people learn to pay attention and little will surprise you.
Peace! Out!
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