Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries

SLC said:

You can relax it's from CNN and an anonymous source. So its fake news. How can you even trust a network that lied to you about Russian Collusion for over two years. The TDS must be strong in you.

Click to expand...

You can't fully trust any news source.
If you really want to be sure you have to track down multiple sources and check their sources to confirm that such a thing actually occurred.

Conversely, however, the anonymity of a source does not in any way mean a story is false or fake - only that it hasn't been corroborated by anyone yet - and may never be.
The nature of this kind of thing, and fear of punishment, just or unjust, will keep many a source anonymous - and reasonably so.

In this case the wording of the title and the story makes it sound like they actually have multiple sources whose stories confirmed each other - all of whom are not willing to have their identities revealed.

And to be honest, if you were talking to the media negatively about Trump, you for damned sure wouldn't want to be known, as some trump supporter is likely to try and kill you, or at least threaten it.

HumblePi said:

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say


President Donald Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources, including overseas spies who provide the US government with crucial information about hostile countries, according to multiple senior officials who served under Trump.

Trump has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders, the sources said. The President "believes we shouldn't be doing that to each other," one former Trump administration official told CNN.

In addition to his fear such foreign intelligence sources will damage his relationship with foreign leaders, Trump has expressed doubts about the credibility of the information they provide. Another former senior intelligence official told CNN that Trump "believes they're people who are selling out their country."

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say - CNNPolitics

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I almost don't know what to say about this. At first I thought it was a joke. When foreigners come to the United States and work hard to become an American citizen, they must swear an allegiance to this country. They hold up their hands in front of a judge and take the Oath of Allegiance.

The last sentence of the Oath of Allegiance says, "Where and if lawfully required, I further commit myself to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, either by military, noncombatant, or civilian service. This I do solemnly swear, so help me God."

Since we are asking immigrants coming to the U.S. to defend this country against foreign and domestic enemies, shouldn't we expect our own president to do as much? This is getting seriously dangerous.

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Not at all. I heard an interview with a former CIA official the other day in relation to the "Trump compromised a spy" story and they were clear that the days of being able to place spies overseas is coming to an end because technology is making it increasingly difficult to do that safely and effectively.

HumblePi said:

I believe it 100% and you don't. That's just how things work. You won't convince me otherwise just as I have no need to convince you otherwise. You're inside the Trump swamp right along with all the other traitors to this country. I am not. I am a patriot that will fight for our democracy.

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I especially like the bit about, "CNN stands by its reporting." Not only should a world renowned news source not have say that, but Trump's supporters are crying fake news anyway.

SLC said:

You can relax it's from CNN and an anonymous source. So its fake news. How can you even trust a network that lied to you about Russian Collusion for over two years. The TDS must be strong in you.

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Endless, baseless liberal hysteria is endless and baseless.

And seriously dangerous.

:hm

3leftsdoo said:

Endless, baseless liberal hysteria is endless and baseless.

And seriously dangerous.

:hm

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There isn't a drop of hysteria anywhere in the article. Why do you have to resort to hysterical hyperbole when someone says Trump's name?

SLC said:

You can relax it's from CNN and an anonymous source. So its fake news. How can you even trust a network that lied to you about Russian Collusion for over two years. The TDS must be strong in you.

Click to expand...

Robert Mueller disagrees with you. I think I’ll take his word over Trump’s.

Trump — skeptical of using foreign spies; but no problem taking foreign help against an American political candidate. I’m sure the irony of that will be lost on your average MAGAt.

HumblePi said:

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say


President Donald Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources, including overseas spies who provide the US government with crucial information about hostile countries, according to multiple senior officials who served under Trump.

Trump has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders, the sources said. The President "believes we shouldn't be doing that to each other," one former Trump administration official told CNN.

In addition to his fear such foreign intelligence sources will damage his relationship with foreign leaders, Trump has expressed doubts about the credibility of the information they provide. Another former senior intelligence official told CNN that Trump "believes they're people who are selling out their country."

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say - CNNPolitics

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I almost don't know what to say about this. At first I thought it was a joke. When foreigners come to the United States and work hard to become an American citizen, they must swear an allegiance to this country. They hold up their hands in front of a judge and take the Oath of Allegiance.

The last sentence of the Oath of Allegiance says, "Where and if lawfully required, I further commit myself to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, either by military, noncombatant, or civilian service. This I do solemnly swear, so help me God."

Since we are asking immigrants coming to the U.S. to defend this country against foreign and domestic enemies, shouldn't we expect our own president to do as much? This is getting seriously dangerous.

Click to expand...

Gee, wonder how he feels about supposedly non-hostile countries spying on us?

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House - POLITICO

The U.S. government concluded within the last two years that Israel was most likely behind the placement of cell-phone surveillance devices that were found near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C., according to three former senior U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter.

But unlike most other occasions when flagrant incidents of foreign spying have been discovered on American soil, the Trump administration did not rebuke the Israeli government, and there were no consequences for Israel’s behavior, one of the former officials said.

The miniature surveillance devices, colloquially known as “StingRays,” mimic regular cell towers to fool cell phones into giving them their locations and identity information. Formally called international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture the contents of calls and data use.

The devices were likely intended to spy on President Donald Trump, one of the former officials said, as well as his top aides and closest associates -- though it’s not clear whether the Israeli efforts were successful.

President Trump is reputed to be lax in observing White House security protocols. POLITICO reported in May 2018 that the president often used an insufficiently secured cell phone to communicate with friends and confidants. The New York Times subsequently reported in October 2018 that “Chinese spies are often listening” to Trump’s cell-phone calls, prompting the president to slam the story as “so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it.” (A former official said Trump has had his cell phone hardened against intrusion.)

By then, as part of tests by the federal government, officials at the Department of Homeland Security had already discovered evidence of the surveillance devices around the nation’s capital, but weren’t able to attribute the devices to specific entities. The officials shared their findings with relevant federal agencies, according to a letter a top DHS official, Christopher Krebs, wrote in May 2018 to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

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Atomic Kid said:

Gee, wonder how he feels about supposedly non-hostile countries spying on us?

Israel accused of planting mysterious spy devices near the White House - POLITICO

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Being the president he should be aware that there are Israeli spies in DC, there's Russian spies in DC. (he even welcomed two of them in the Oval Office) There's spies from China in D.C. and in just about every golf resort he owns. It's been reported that there's an estimated 10,000 spies in D.C. alone. I don't know how anyone would know that for sure but there's certainly a good amount of spying going on and where's the best place to do that? Washington of course. Woven into that orderly bedlam in rush hour in DC are sophisticated networks of foreign nationals whose sole purpose is to steal secrets.

There's been an unparalleled wave of international espionage, aided by technology, that has exploded in D.C. The conventional international spy in Washington for many years has been undercover diplomats and foreign intelligence agency assets. But no more. A spy today is going to be someone that’s going to be a student in school, a visiting professor or a clerk in a hotel.

The Russians, Iran, China and Israel are hyper focused on the United States. But Russia in particular see us as their main adversary, the main enemy. All the elements of state power, whether it be their diplomatic service or intelligence services or police services, are honed in on the United States. When Trump says he doesn't want the US to have spies and eyes all over the world, he's leaving the US with a soft underbelly exposed and very vulnerable.

Risky Thicket said:

Ask yourself, What Would Putin Do (WWPD)? Given the chance would Putin pull all US spies out of Russia? You damn skippy he would! All Trump's authoritarian role models would love to pull US spies out of their realms of influence.

Nobody knows less about intelligence that Donald Trump.

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Well, maybe the CIA. Trump was correct in scoffing at American Intel organizations, but stupid for publicly doing it in front of cameras while entertaining Putin.

The fact that the CIA had a guy so high up in Moscow is actually shocking. It's one of their very few success stories. For the most part, the CIA's history is littered with failure because it lacked imagination, lacked proper analytical skills, and denied itself the ability to develop espionage techniques due to it's historical wish to be mostly only a clandestine service. For example:

- It never really created an espionage network inside the Soviet Union because its agents were either routinely caught and executed or they passed insignificant information for the paycheck. This failure reached its apex in the 1980s when America's spies inside the Soviet Union were all arrested, tried, imprisoned, and executed one after another. For years, James Angleton, chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, was convinced of a high ranking mole within the CIA. He became infamous in his counter-productive zeal to discover this mole, and in time after his resignation, counter-intelligence efforts were undertaken with far less enthusiasm and resulted in oversights. The reason America's spies within the Soviet Union were killed off in the 1980s is that Adrich Ames, a widely known agent for his documented drunkedness and ineptitude, had failed upward for seventeen years. In 1985, he was awarded for this by being promoted to chief of counterintelligence for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He was a double agent who wound up giving Moscow the names of hundreds of agents all over the world.

One of the CIA's biggest failures everywhere was its refusal to understand foreign countries and governments through the eyes of the average person on the street. For example:

- From 1956, much of the CIA's Intelligence on the Arab world was filtered through Israeli Intelligence. The Israeli perspective colored American perceptions at all levels.

- The CIA handed Nasser millions to buy his support and assured Eisenhower that he was bought. They were shocked when Nasser agreed to sell cotton to the Soviets and when he nationalized the Suez, something the Egyptian in the street had known for weeks. Then, Allen Dulles, the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence, assured Eisenhower that the rumor of a joint Israeli-UK-French military plan to attack Egypt was absurd. Israel lied to the CIA and the CIA took it at face value. So when it absolutely did happen days later, Eisenhower was caught off balance, which means that the CIA had failed in Jerusalem, Paris, and London.

- The CIA failed to understand the Islamic Revolution in Iran and instead chose to blame the KGB (who blamed the CIA, to be fair).

- By the late 1970s, the CIA knew of the economic troubles in Moscow, but failed to assess how that might turn into political trouble.

- The CIA failed to know that Gorbachev told the leader of Afghanistan in 1987 that he was going to start pulling his troops out. And when American citizens in the Washington streets began to hail Gorbachev as a hero who wanted to end the Cold War, the CIA was clueless because they could not grasp the concept.

- The CIA was surprised when the Berlin Wall came down.

- The CIA failed to truly recognize al-Qaeda as a threat after creating its most hardened warriors in Afghanistan.

But the biggest failure was how, overtime, the CIA directors began bow to political pressure and deliver Intel to the President that more fit his agenda, rather than the situation. For example:

- Despite knowing that the second Gulf of Tonken "attack" was a mistake within hours, they provided Johnson the Intel he needed so that he could convince Congress to give him the power to escalate dramatically the conflict in Vietnam to defend U.S. troops.

- Despite having the evidence to the contrary, going back to 1998 when Clinton ordered strikes on Iraqi targets and the CIA could provide no WMD targets to the military, the CIA told Bush that they "could not know" if Hussein had WMD in 2002. This means that not only did the CIA not have a network inside Iraq over the entirety of the 1990s, but also preferred to rely upon the military to investigate in order to be able to provide anything at all.

Torus34 said:

Finally, President of the United States of America is displaying a knowledge of historical precedent.

Ref: ‘Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.’ Henry Stimson, Secretary of State, 1929

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.... I assure you, the US was spying on people in 1929.



Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

Hatuey said:

.... I assure you, the US was spying on people in 1929. Sent from the Matrioshka in the WH Christmas tree.

Click to expand...

Hi! Thanks for posting. Here I was, thinking that pretending naivety provided a cloak of invisibility ... and you called me out! ;-)

Regards.

HumblePi said:

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say


President Donald Trump has privately and repeatedly expressed opposition to the use of foreign intelligence from covert sources, including overseas spies who provide the US government with crucial information about hostile countries, according to multiple senior officials who served under Trump.

Trump has privately said that foreign spies can damage relations with their host countries and undermine his personal relationships with their leaders, the sources said. The President "believes we shouldn't be doing that to each other," one former Trump administration official told CNN.

In addition to his fear such foreign intelligence sources will damage his relationship with foreign leaders, Trump has expressed doubts about the credibility of the information they provide. Another former senior intelligence official told CNN that Trump "believes they're people who are selling out their country."

Trump skeptical of using foreign spies to collect intel on hostile countries, sources say - CNNPolitics

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I almost don't know what to say about this. At first I thought it was a joke. When foreigners come to the United States and work hard to become an American citizen, they must swear an allegiance to this country. They hold up their hands in front of a judge and take the Oath of Allegiance.

The last sentence of the Oath of Allegiance says, "Where and if lawfully required, I further commit myself to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, either by military, noncombatant, or civilian service. This I do solemnly swear, so help me God."

Since we are asking immigrants coming to the U.S. to defend this country against foreign and domestic enemies, shouldn't we expect our own president to do as much? This is getting seriously dangerous.

Click to expand...

Mr. Trump has an absolutely unshakable case. The only people that the United States of America should use as intelligence sources in foreign countries are bona fide American citizens whose devoted service to the government of the United States of America has been verified and substantiated by service in the government and military of the United States of America.

Not only that, but no one who has ever expressed an opinion that is even remotely contrary to that which the government of the United States of America is currently holding out as being the definitive truth, should be trusted to obtain information from inside foreign governments.

If one applies that eminently sensible rule, then the US government will save a ton of money because it simply won't have to pay very many people to obtain inside information about what foreign governments are doing.

MSgt said:

Well, maybe the CIA. Trump was correct in scoffing at American Intel organizations, but stupid for publicly doing it in front of cameras while entertaining Putin.

The fact that the CIA had a guy so high up in Moscow is actually shocking. It's one of their very few success stories. For the most part, the CIA's history is littered with failure because it lacked imagination, lacked proper analytical skills, and denied itself the ability to develop espionage techniques due to it's historical wish to be mostly only a clandestine service. For example:

- It never really created an espionage network inside the Soviet Union because its agents were either routinely caught and executed or they passed insignificant information for the paycheck. This failure reached its apex in the 1980s when America's spies inside the Soviet Union were all arrested, tried, imprisoned, and executed one after another. For years, James Angleton, chief of CIA Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1975, was convinced of a high ranking mole within the CIA. He became infamous in his counter-productive zeal to discover this mole, and in time after his resignation, counter-intelligence efforts were undertaken with far less enthusiasm and resulted in oversights. The reason America's spies within the Soviet Union were killed off in the 1980s is that Adrich Ames, a widely known agent for his documented drunkedness and ineptitude, had failed upward for seventeen years. In 1985, he was awarded for this by being promoted to chief of counterintelligence for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He was a double agent who wound up giving Moscow the names of hundreds of agents all over the world.

One of the CIA's biggest failures everywhere was its refusal to understand foreign countries and governments through the eyes of the average person on the street. For example:

- From 1956, much of the CIA's Intelligence on the Arab world was filtered through Israeli Intelligence. The Israeli perspective colored American perceptions at all levels.

- The CIA handed Nasser millions to buy his support and assured Eisenhower that he was bought. They were shocked when Nasser agreed to sell cotton to the Soviets and when he nationalized the Suez, something the Egyptian in the street had known for weeks. Then, Allen Dulles, the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence, assured Eisenhower that the rumor of a joint Israeli-UK-French military plan to attack Egypt was absurd. Israel lied to the CIA and the CIA took it at face value. So when it absolutely did happen days later, Eisenhower was caught off balance, which means that the CIA had failed in Jerusalem, Paris, and London.

- The CIA failed to understand the Islamic Revolution in Iran and instead chose to blame the KGB (who blamed the CIA, to be fair).

- By the late 1970s, the CIA knew of the economic troubles in Moscow, but failed to assess how that might turn into political trouble.

- The CIA failed to know that Gorbachev told the leader of Afghanistan in 1987 that he was going to start pulling his troops out. And when American citizens in the Washington streets began to hail Gorbachev as a hero who wanted to end the Cold War, the CIA was clueless because they could not grasp the concept.

- The CIA was surprised when the Berlin Wall came down.

- The CIA failed to truly recognize al-Qaeda as a threat after creating its most hardened warriors in Afghanistan.

But the biggest failure was how, overtime, the CIA directors began bow to political pressure and deliver Intel to the President that more fit his agenda, rather than the situation. For example:

- Despite knowing that the second Gulf of Tonken "attack" was a mistake within hours, they provided Johnson the Intel he needed so that he could convince Congress to give him the power to escalate dramatically the conflict in Vietnam to defend U.S. troops.

- Despite having the evidence to the contrary, going back to 1998 when Clinton ordered strikes on Iraqi targets and the CIA could provide no WMD targets to the military, the CIA told Bush that they "could not know" if Hussein had WMD in 2002. This means that not only did the CIA not have a network inside Iraq over the entirety of the 1990s, but also preferred to rely upon the military to investigate in order to be able to provide anything at all.

Click to expand...

That is an excellent post. Where/when did the CIA begin to render itself marginally effective? In your opinion what nation has the best intelligence service?

Risky Thicket said:

That is an excellent post. Where/when did the CIA begin to render itself marginally effective? In your opinion what nation has the best intelligence service?

Click to expand...

It proved marginally effective when it orchestrated the 1953 coup in Iran. However, the CIA was instrumental in deceiving Eisenhower, which violated its core reason to exist. The British and the Dulles Brothers (Allen & John Foster) wanted a coup to get the oil back, but Truman refused this. The British learned, with Dulles Brother agreement, that their argument had to be more ideological. So when Eisenhower won the election in 1952, they began to argue that Iran may lean towards communism if their unstable government persisted. In the meantime, the British were engineering a media campaign in Iran to sow discord and dissension towards Mosaddegh's government in order to create the illusion of instability. A mere few weeks after Eisenhower entered into office in January 1953, the Dulles Brothers showed him complementary CIA reports of communist themes within Iran. He approved of the coup and it's messy success became the source of the CIA myth for future clandestine operations.

In terms of ineffective, almost immediately. The very first realization came from Richard Helms who recognized that at least half of the information on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the CIA's files was pure falsehood. His stations in Berlin and in Vienna had become factories of false Intelligence, provided by either double agents or agents who presented rumor as fact. Few of the CIA's officers or analysts could sift fact from fiction and this problem persisted throughout its history and we saw it clearly when the CIA sought to uncover Iraq's WMD. "We just don't know" was all they could muster for Bush, who ordered them to find evidence, and that was all Bush had to tell Congress. By the way, do you know how many Arabic or Farsi speakers exist within the CIA today? By 2005, they were turning them away in droves for fear of security and by 2010 the CIA was publicly begging for people who are fluent in languages spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq. And as of 2018, the CIA reported that it still critically needed Arabic, Korean, Pashto, Chinese, Dari, Russian, and Persian/Farsi speakers. One might start getting the feeling that the CIA just figured out who we have been dealing with since 1945.

- The CIA's first covert operation of the Cold War took place in Romania. General Hoyt Vandenberg, the second director of central intelligence before the official "CIA" title, argued to Truman in 1946 that "the original concept of the Central Intelligence Group should be altered" to make it an "operating agency." That same day, Vandenberg received $10 million in secret funds from the Secretary of War (Robert Patterson) and the Secretary of State (James Byrnes). Vandenberg used the money to set up an underground resistance force and to buy Romanian politicians who would move to cut the Red Army's supply lines in Romania. After a few weeks, Soviet Intelligence and the Romanian secret police discovered the plot. The Americans on the ground ran for their lives as the secret police slaughtered the created resistance. The Peasant Party's leaders were charged with treason and imprisoned. And by the end of the year, every single one of the Romanians who worked with the CIA had been imprisoned or executed. In place of what was the birth of a fragile democracy we saw the rise of a brutal dictatorship, which was absolutely hastened into legitimacy because of the CIA. This messy failure was the first of the CIA historical truth. Wisner, Vandenberg, and the rest of the inner clique, who wanted clandestine rather than boring espionage, merely doubled down.

Risky Thicket said:

In your opinion what nation has the best intelligence service?

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about the best, but I wouldn't stray far from British Intelligence.

During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence kicked our ass because they constantly encouraged our simplistic perspectives to see everything as either democratic or communist by presenting false Intel that gave us what we wanted to see. They also planted double agents in very high places, which helped to create bad policies and set up foreign agents for capture. We blinded ourselves because of our misguided ideology. Not that the Soviets were successful. They were a complete disaster in the global arena and after decades of failure saw their first real success in east Africa in the late 1960s, before screwing that all up and having to acknowledge that their goals for Africa, like ours in many places too, had been unrealistic.

Torus34 said:

Finally, President of the United States of America is displaying a knowledge of historical precedent.

Ref: ‘Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.’ Henry Stimson, Secretary of State, 1929

Click to expand...

Good thing he was of a different opinion as FDR’s Secretary of War!

MSgt said:

It proved marginally effective when it orchestrated the 1953 coup in Iran. However, the CIA was instrumental in deceiving Eisenhower, which violated its core reason to exist. The British and the Dulles Brothers (Allen & John Foster) wanted a coup to get the oil back, but Truman refused this. The British learned, with Dulles Brother agreement, that their argument had to be more ideological. So when Eisenhower won the election in 1952, they began to argue that Iran may lean towards communism if their unstable government persisted. In the meantime, the British were engineering a media campaign in Iran to sow discord and dissension towards Mosaddegh's government in order to create the illusion of instability. A mere few weeks after Eisenhower entered into office in January 1953, the Dulles Brothers showed him complementary CIA reports of communist themes within Iran. He approved of the coup and it's messy success became the source of the CIA myth for future clandestine operations.

In terms of ineffective, almost immediately. The very first realization came from Richard Helms who recognized that at least half of the information on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the CIA's files was pure falsehood. His stations in Berlin and in Vienna had become factories of false Intelligence, provided by either double agents or agents who presented rumor as fact. Few of the CIA's officers or analysts could sift fact from fiction and this problem persisted throughout its history and we saw it clearly when the CIA sought to uncover Iraq's WMD. "We just don't know" was all they could muster for Bush, who ordered them to find evidence, and that was all Bush had to tell Congress. By the way, do you know how many Arabic or Farsi speakers exist within the CIA today? By 2005, they were turning them away in droves for fear of security and by 2010 the CIA was publicly begging for people who are fluent in languages spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq. And as of 2018, the CIA reported that it still critically needed Arabic, Korean, Pashto, Chinese, Dari, Russian, and Persian/Farsi speakers. One might start getting the feeling that the CIA just figured out who we have been dealing with since 1945.

- The CIA's first covert operation of the Cold War took place in Romania. General Hoyt Vandenberg, the second director of central intelligence before the official "CIA" title, argued to Truman in 1946 that "the original concept of the Central Intelligence Group should be altered" to make it an "operating agency." That same day, Vandenberg received $10 million in secret funds from the Secretary of War (Robert Patterson) and the Secretary of State (James Byrnes). Vandenberg used the money to set up an underground resistance force and to buy Romanian politicians who would move to cut the Red Army's supply lines in Romania. After a few weeks, Soviet Intelligence and the Romanian secret police discovered the plot. <snipped for character limit>



I'm not sure about the best, but I wouldn't stray far from British Intelligence.

During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence kicked our ass because they constantly encouraged our simplistic perspectives to see everything as either democratic or communist by presenting false Intel that gave us what we wanted to see. They also planted double agents in very high places, which helped to create bad policies and set up foreign agents for capture. We blinded ourselves because of our misguided ideology. Not that the Soviets were successful. They were a complete disaster in the global arena and after decades of failure saw their first real success in east Africa in the late 1960s, before screwing that all up and having to acknowledge that their goals for Africa, like ours in many places too, had been unrealistic.

Click to expand...

You’re not forgetting Kim Philby and his comrades, are you?

Stealers Wheel said:

I disagree. Trump is far more cunning and calculating than we give him credit for. What appears at first glance to be crazy town is actually Trump deliberately and methodically controlling the narrative. While normal people are going "Wait ... What?" Trump has got their focus off of whatever it was on before. It doesn't matter how crazy or even verifiably false it is, if it gets you off what you were thinking and talking about before, it works.

Doubt this?

How many GOP primary candidates were there in 2016? How many can you name? Can you recall any specific issue positions any of them took? Most people can't.

But if I mention Gold Star Family, disabled reporter, the Cruz family and the JFK assassination, and Mexico paying for 'something' I bet most people will have something come to mind.

Why? Because Trump controls the narrative. This is no accident. This is not Peter Sellers bumbling through "Being There." This is Trump using the MSM and social media to keep the focus where he wants it.

Click to expand...

Interesting theory; watching him I disagree. I think the fact that he has never had to suffer any consequences for his actions drives him and there is a certain air of invincibility. I admit to underestimating him, but I don’t think he is near as cunning as you describe.

Rexedgar said:

Good thing he was of a different opinion as FDR’s Secretary of War!



You’re not forgetting Kim Philby and his comrades, are you?

Click to expand...

Oh, no. Double agents are a feature in secret organizations like the CIA, MI6, or the KGB. It's just part of the game. But British Intelligence, like just about all the rest, has always centered on the idea of espionage, not clandestine action. WWII saw more clandestine action for obvious reasons, but this was never their long-term focus, and even during that war espionage to gather Intel was a chief factor. Philby was damaging, but he wasn't a documented inept drunk who was promoted consistently for seventeen years. The CIA ignored all of it until it bit them in the ass. And this was routine for other agents who frequently went off the reservation, pushed local agendas, contradicted mandates, and was promoted for it because the CIA had a way of protecting even its worse. Think of a ****-bird Lt. who maintained his behavior, yet eventually wound up a Colonel in charge of a Division.

It's because Wisner won the argument against Helms that the CIA boldly abandoned espionage and entered into secret operations. Instead of seeking out and discovering Intel so that we could understand foreign activities so that it could, in turn, provide the President what he needed to prevent future attacks on American soil (it's official original mandate), the CIA set out to sow discord in foreign governments in order to control them. It was always an impractical goal that encouraged ultimate failures. This is exactly why the CIA was caught off guard so often, even as the average guy in the streets knew, and why it was so easy to infiltrate with double agents who played into CIA bi-polar perspectives of the world.

The CIA's idea of Intel is a satellite photo, not what the people on the ground are thinking and what the government's intentions may actually be. It is because of this mentality that the CIA had no satellite imagery of WMD in Iraq and no agents on the ground providing anything. But instead of telling Bush that it looks very probable that Hussein has no WMD, they bowed to political pressure and gave Bush what he wanted to invade. And how foolish were we to accept the notion that our great CIA's path forward was to announce that "they don't know," with the idea that only a military invasion could provide the Intel they need? It was completely backwards to the entire point of their existence.

MSgt said:

It proved marginally effective when it orchestrated the 1953 coup in Iran. However, the CIA was instrumental in deceiving Eisenhower, which violated its core reason to exist. The British and the Dulles Brothers (Allen & John Foster) wanted a coup to get the oil back, but Truman refused this. The British learned, with Dulles Brother agreement, that their argument had to be more ideological. So when Eisenhower won the election in 1952, they began to argue that Iran may lean towards communism if their unstable government persisted. In the meantime, the British were engineering a media campaign in Iran to sow discord and dissension towards Mosaddegh's government in order to create the illusion of instability. A mere few weeks after Eisenhower entered into office in January 1953, the Dulles Brothers showed him complementary CIA reports of communist themes within Iran. He approved of the coup and it's messy success became the source of the CIA myth for future clandestine operations.

In terms of ineffective, almost immediately. The very first realization came from Richard Helms who recognized that at least half of the information on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the CIA's files was pure falsehood. His stations in Berlin and in Vienna had become factories of false Intelligence, provided by either double agents or agents who presented rumor as fact. Few of the CIA's officers or analysts could sift fact from fiction and this problem persisted throughout its history and we saw it clearly when the CIA sought to uncover Iraq's WMD. "We just don't know" was all they could muster for Bush, who ordered them to find evidence, and that was all Bush had to tell Congress. By the way, do you know how many Arabic or Farsi speakers exist within the CIA today? By 2005, they were turning them away in droves for fear of security and by 2010 the CIA was publicly begging for people who are fluent in languages spoken in Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq. And as of 2018, the CIA reported that it still critically needed Arabic, Korean, Pashto, Chinese, Dari, Russian, and Persian/Farsi speakers. One might start getting the feeling that the CIA just figured out who we have been dealing with since 1945.

- The CIA's first covert operation of the Cold War took place in Romania. General Hoyt Vandenberg, the second director of central intelligence before the official "CIA" title, argued to Truman in 1946 that "the original concept of the Central Intelligence Group should be altered" to make it an "operating agency." That same day, Vandenberg received $10 million in secret funds from the Secretary of War (Robert Patterson) and the Secretary of State (James Byrnes). [truncated here to satisfy charater max, Risky] The Americans on the ground ran for their lives as the secret police slaughtered the created resistance. The Peasant Party's leaders were charged with treason and imprisoned. And by the end of the year, every single one of the Romanians who worked with the CIA had been imprisoned or executed. In place of what was the birth of a fragile democracy we saw the rise of a brutal dictatorship, which was absolutely hastened into legitimacy because of the CIA. This messy failure was the first of the CIA historical truth. Wisner, Vandenberg, and the rest of the inner clique, who wanted clandestine rather than boring espionage, merely doubled down.

I'm not sure about the best, but I wouldn't stray far from British Intelligence.

During the Cold War, Soviet intelligence kicked our ass because they constantly encouraged our simplistic perspectives to see everything as either democratic or communist by presenting false Intel that gave us what we wanted to see. They also planted double agents in very high places, which helped to create bad policies and set up foreign agents for capture. We blinded ourselves because of our misguided ideology. Not that the Soviets were successful. They were a complete disaster in the global arena and after decades of failure saw their first real success in east Africa in the late 1960s, before screwing that all up and having to acknowledge that their goals for Africa, like ours in many places too, had been unrealistic.

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Fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to post that.

You sound as though you are more than casually familiar with the subject. Is your graduate degree somehow related to the topic?

It has occurred to me that the CIA might have taken the wrong path by initially recruiting from Ivy League schools. To my thinking doing so might have established the wrong culture at the CIA.

The Dulles brothers, from all I have read, contributed nothing to the betterment of the United States.

Stealers Wheel said:

Trump once again demonstrates he is completely ignorant of how intel works,......

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I suspect he is speaking of how intelligence actually worked. It was British intelligence that's said that Sadam could deploy chemical and biological weapons in 45 minutes. It was French intelligence that said that Saddams Aluminum tubes could be for nothing other than a centrifuge. And Russian intelligence that said Saddam was planning on carrying out terrorists attacks on the US.

Risky Thicket said:

Fascinating. Thank you for taking the time to post that.

You sound as though you are more than casually familiar with the subject. Is your graduate degree somehow related to the topic?

It has occurred to me that the CIA might have taken the wrong path by initially recruiting from Ivy League schools. To my thinking doing so might have established the wrong culture at the CIA.

The Dulles brothers, from all I have read, contributed nothing to the betterment of the United States.

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Yeah, my Master's is in Middle East/Islamic history and American Foreign policy.

Oh, you are correct. The Dulles Brothers sit at the core of this. It was on June 27, 1947 that a congressional committee held a secret hearing in Room 1501 of the Longworth Office Building that led to the formal creation of the CIA. Allen Dulles described a CIA that would be "directed by a relatively small but elite corps of men with a passion for anonymity. He and his brother, John Foster, assured Congress that they "only needed a few hundred men and the operation of the service must neither be flamboyant nor over-shrouded in mystery." It's from this that Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, which gave birth to the CIA on September 18. But what we know, from the primary documentation, is that the Dulles brothers had wanted to resurrect the wartime covert operations of the OSS all along.

Truman later wrote that he didn't want a "Cloak & Dagger outfit," but that is exactly what they created and its secrecy, to this day, has always conflicted with American democracy. They created a sort of elitist club of thinkers who embodied the bi-polar Cold War mentality, which blinded them in ideology and often enough left them almost refusing to understand the historical era in which they worked. It becomes very obvious when we look at the CIA's original primary purpose and the agency's development.

- Above all else, the CIA's mission was to inform the President of what was happening in the world and keep him forewarned against surprise attack, or as Roosevelt stated, a second Pearl Harbor.

But this was perverted immediately. The CIA's first top secret orders came on December 14 and it involved rigging the Italian elections so that communist couldn't win. And as time went on, where understanding the world failed, Presidents began ordering the CIA to change the course of history through covert action. They began not only helping Presidents create wars, but actually creating its own war in Southeast Asia. This is far cry from merely gathering Intel in order to keep the President informed of foreign activity.

But you can't understand the world if you are too busy trying to change it into something that makes sense on paper so that it can fit a preferred ideology. This is where their history of misery and failure comes from. Their covert actions were largely stabs in the dark. They concealed their failures from Presidents, even lied to Eisenhower and then Kennedy. And with one failure after another, the CIA was rebuked and scorned by Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter. But it wasn't until W. Bush that the CIA was publicly dismissed it. Not only did it fail to prevent a second Pearl Harbor on 9/11, but it could not stand on firm ground in regards to Iraqi WMD. But along the way, from Kennedy on, these Presidents misused the CIA, forced them into political positions, and then frowned when the half-assed or fabricated Intel didn't pan out. They went from being an organization meant for working abroad to spying on the American people, beginning in 1952. From opening first class incoming mail, to spying on suspected communists in government, industry, and Hollywood, to tapping phones. Bush actually made it official through the Patriot Act. But Kennedy and Nixon are on record too. The CIA's unwritten mission was to survive the politics in Washington D.C. And the fabricated myths and false legends of the CIA largely come from the CIA Directors themselves who allowed secrecy and rumors of success to thrive.

MSgt said:

It proved marginally effective ...

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One absolutely must not forget the sterling contributions which Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen (formerly of Fremde Heere Ost, founder of Gehlen Org, and later head of Bundesnachrichtendienst) made to the incredibly successful CIA penetrations of Russia. Those were at least as helpful to the US as was the contributions of Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii (who had headed up Manshu Detachment 731) and the other members of that Japanese unit.

Rexedgar said:

Interesting theory; watching him I disagree. I think the fact that he has never had to suffer any consequences for his actions drives him and there is a certain air of invincibility.

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"Affluenza" anyone?

TU Curmudgeon said:

One absolutely must not forget the sterling contributions which Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen (formerly of Fremde Heere Ost, founder of Gehlen Org, and later head of Bundesnachrichtendienst) made to the incredibly successful CIA penetrations of Russia. Those were at least as helpful to the US as was the contributions of Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii (who had headed up Manshu Detachment 731) and the other members of that Japanese unit.

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TU Curmudgeon said:

One absolutely must not forget the sterling contributions which Generalmajor Reinhard Gehlen (formerly of Fremde Heere Ost, founder of Gehlen Org, and later head of Bundesnachrichtendienst) made to the incredibly successful CIA penetrations of Russia. Those were at least as helpful to the US as was the contributions of Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii (who had headed up Manshu Detachment 731) and the other members of that Japanese unit.

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Gehlen is hardly something the CIA can celebrate as success. I'm not sure what you mean here:

- After promoting himself as a useful tool against the Soviets, the Army repeatedly tried to hand him off to the CIA. But most of Richard Helm's officer's were dead-set against working with a network of SS personnel with horrible Nazi records. This was for moral and security issues. It wasn't until the summer of 1949(?) that the CIA finally took control of the Gehlen group from the military. Gehlen welcomed prominent war criminals into his circle and the CIA authorized them and their exposure to material. As a result, Soviet Intelligence penetrated the Gehlen group, which justified Helms and his officers original concerns. But it wasn't until long after Gehlen transformed his group into the national intelligence service of West Germany that it was discovered that his chief of counterintelligence had been working with Moscow all along. In the meantime, Gehlen convinced the CIA that he could run missions. The result was the inability to establish a spy network inside the Soviet Union and the failed clandestine operations in Ukraine and Albania, which saw the elimination of CIA agents and locals. Kim Philby was a part of this because Gehlen's West German office collaborated with London.

So, whatever good Gehlen's group did, the damage it did was absolutely far, far worse. But doesn't this say something about the CIA when it has to hire former Nazis with infamous criminal war records to at least attempt to perform its mandate? The idea that we need to work with undesirables in order to square off with another enemy is an indicator of failure to begin with because you are putting your trust, faith, and security in that type of crowd. And today, the CIA is still publicly desperate for agents who can speak Farsi, Arabic, Pashto/Dari (Afghanistan), Korean, and Chinese. This is because their history of high-level infiltration and inability to maintain proper security has left them entirely paranoid...and impotent. How in hell can we have been at war in Afghanistan for nineteen years and the CIA still desperately needs people who speak the goddamned language!?


I'm not sure how Ishii fits into the CIA narrative, but I don't know much about him either.