Sir Percy Alleline will return to save us.

 

"As for the clincher about Trump being a Moscow run Manchurian candidate, I would suggest that Morell might have been a top analyst at the Agency but he never acquired or ran an actual spy in his life so his comments about The Donald having been recruited by Putin should be taken for what they are worth, which is precisely nothing. Indeed, as I have noted, calling someone an “unwitting agent” is itself meaningless as it implies being somehow recruited to engage in espionage but without realizing it and without being actually called upon to do anything. I would doubt that many real CIA Operations Officers would agree with Morell’s glib assessment or use such an expression. Trump for all his failings is presumably patriotic and no fool. He just might understand that dealing with a powerful foreign leader who is not completely to one’s liking just might be better than nuclear war. Perhaps Morell and Clinton should consider that option.

Michael Morell is, in fact, a product of Washington groupthink and a major beneficiary of Establishment politics, the very tradition that Hillary Clinton represents."  Phil Geraldi

---------------

Geraldi is a friend and I assure you that, unlike Morell, he has recruited and run many foreign assets (agents). 

The most recent film production of Le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is a very nearly perfect depiction of the result of the process by which political creatures like the character Percy Alleline and jumped up pretty boy types in expensive suits like Morell rise to run once mighty agencies of the secret information trade.   

The vicious but smooth people who rise in such circumstances are always present in every large organization but in the intelligence business more is at stake than money.  The IC sometimes fails?  Yes, it does and when that happens the cause is often the "leadership" of people like Tenet and Morell.

I expect that Morell will be right at the top in the first H. Clinton Administration.  pl 

http://www.unz.com/article/i-ran-the-cia-man-piles-on-trump/

Download artists_versus_bureaucrats....pdf

Comments

[elaine]

Michael Morell was interviewed last night on Charlie Rose. My take away: He really
wants Assad gone & thinks this can be done while preserving Syria's basic institutions. He wants Russia & Iran to pay a big price for propping up Assad.
He wants to destroy everything Assad owns & only stops short of assassination.

Apparently he surmises anyone not on board with his ideas is motivated by fear of
"the browning of America", which he appears to be most proud. I thought he was a little scary, maybe real scary & too pie-in-the sky for me. My personal suggestion:
His whiteness do a tour of grunt duty in the region.

[b]

The guy is a psychopath and a moron.

He wants to kill Russians and Iranians in Syria to "make them pay a price"? And those people can't pay back?

He wants to kill Assad's guards and destroy his plane and helicopter (Assad doesn't have such) to teach him a lesson and to seek a political compromise?

If he would know anything about people he would know that Assad would not and can not "seek a compromise" (=giving Syria to Jihadis) because of attacks on his surroundings (like the attack on his inner circle in 2012). It is a sign of primitive and racist thinking to suggest the otherwise.

How could they let such a guy to the top of the CIA?

[turcopolier]

b

I described the process. pl

[Ghostship]

If you think that's stupid, he was only warming up:

‘Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad,’ says ex-CIA chief backing Clinton?

“We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria, we need to make the Russians pay a price,” he continued.
When asked if that meant killing Russians and Iranians, Morell fully agreed, qualifying the answer with “covertly.”
“Tell the world about it, right?” he went on. “You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say ‘we did this,’ but you make sure they know it in Moscow and Tehran.”

https://www.rt.com/usa/355291-morrell-kill-russians-clinton/

I remember a retired employee of MI6 saying it was bad practice to kill members of opposing intelligence services because it made the members of your service too vulnerable.

[turcopolier]

Ghostship

The man has no experience in the field and was never trained for it. He is a "silly savage" typical of the "perfumed princes" of the court as Hackworth called them. pl

[The Beaver]

@ elaine

now you see it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ0fLptcBN4

now you don't
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dSzqEp3n6g

Now that he is "prostituting" himself to be in HRC's cabinet.
I guess we will see covert CIA killings like in South America using "contractors"

[Jack]

All

Guys like this dude is why the Borg Queen needs to be defeated in November. Nothing else really matters. We can't afford under any circumstance an administration that will escalate a conflict with Russia into a nuclear exchange. The Borg Queen brings far too much risk in creating situations that lead to nukes. She can't be trusted with the button.

[Anna]

Clinton's emails: "...the risk of the names of CIA personnel being revealed in this way is "theoretical and probably remains so at this time." Clinton has endangered the lives of the CIA agents; some informants perhaps paid with their lives for Madame Secretary conveniences. Sounds like a treason. The sycophantic Morell is particularly disgusting because he should know the drill.
Along with Clinton, Morell was one of the most vicious accusers of Edward Snowden: http://www.inquisitr.com/3280941/edward-snowden-reacts-to-fbi-recommendation-that-hillary-clinton-should-not-be-charged/

[michael brenner]

"My take away: He really wants Assad gone & thinks this can be done while preserving Syria's basic institutions. He wants Russia & Iran to pay a big price for propping up Assad."

Our generous tolerance of leaders, elected and appointed, acting stupidly grows steadily and is now a fact of Washington life. But now we have moved beyond that in allowing senior Intelligence officials and Generals on active duty to shoot their mouths off on sensitive matters of national policy at will. I am aware that Morrell is 'EX'; however, Brennan and his predecessors have done the same. Not to speak of Petraeus, McChrystal, Breedlove, et al. This strikes me as exceedingly dangerous practice. Obama's timidity emboldened many to violate every boundary that used to be sacrosanct. As a consequence, new norms have been established that will make it doubly difficult for any President to restore the sane status quo ante - most certainly not the two current aspirants.

[hans]

After reading both Geraldi and Col. Lang's Artists vs Bureaucrats I went to my files to find my fallout maps to re-check how far my cabin is from significant radiation plumes. [Note to self: get the maps updated.] Wonder what the shelf life of MREs is? ... Then next time I'm up, check the lining of my cistern, lay in a truckload of furnace coal and fill the woodshed with seasoned maple. And I'm not being snarky or facetious.

Morell's performance on Rose's show was flat out bizarre - and so far no one I've seen in MSM has evinced any understanding what the actions he proposes imply. If, as seems likely, Morell and his ilk will form Hillary's inner circle we'd best all check our worst-case arrangements.

[Old Dog]

"Trump for all his failings is presumably patriotic and no fool."

Not a fan of either Hillary or Morell, but this assumes facts not in evidence.

[A Pols]

"The man has no experience in the field and was never trained for it. He is a "silly savage" typical of the "perfumed princes" of the court as Hackworth called them. pl"

It seems these days that's most all we have, eh?
The devolution of political process sort of leads that way.
I'm no randian by any means, but there are always kernels of truth to be found
in odd places and one analysis of what went on in "Atlas Shrugged" was the following quote...

"aristocracy of pull: a new group of powerful men who have reached their status not by means of talent or initiative, but by means of political connections."

Sooo, Kerry, HRC, and so many others, not to mention what you, Colonel, referred to as "The Children's Crusade". Think Samantha Power. Where do these people come from? Is there some academy where non critical thinking is taught?

I am profoundly discouraged and pessimistic about all this and have the sense we are going to come a cropper before it all ends...

[Ghostship]

My apologies.
There is an unclosed b (bold) html tag probably just before "Kill Russians and Iranians, threaten Assad" so please delete it The i html tags look ok though.

Please delete this comment - I don't have an email address so only way to communicate

[Kooshy]

Colonel
In election years like this this kind of behavior is fully expected and normal with behind sniffers like this guy. He simply believes Hilly&Billy will win and he is doing everything to land a job with HillyBilly admin. 50 other old never been wrong Repos just wrote an open letter to us the Americans begging us not to vote for Trump since unlike them and Hilly, he will make mistakes. X CIA chief Gen. Michael Hayden was on Clintion News and was telling Wolf B. We are asking not to vote for Trump but that doesn't mean we are supporting Hillary!!! I guess Wolffy forgot to ask the General if in that case the good general is going to vote for Jill Stien.

[Anna]

This is off topic, but there is interesting development re the battle for Aleppo: hhttp://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950518001118
"... the warships of the western states, specially the US, deployed in the Mediterranean Sea send intelligence to Jeish al-Fatah militants in Syria."

[Fred]

"The vicious but smooth people who rise ..." I have had to work with a few in private industry and suffer under a few in academia.

[turcopolier]

Anna

There are CIA staff - US civil service people, and then there are foreign agents of the CIA, recruited foreign citizen assets. These last are not US citizens and are not US government employees. They are expendable like rounds of ammunition. Do you understand the difference? It is a critical difference. This difference exists in ALL intelligence services worthy of the name. pl

[jdledell]

While I agree completely with the assessment of Morrell, it begs the question of who is in Trump's camp as possible candidates for the Intelligence jobs in a Trump Administration. I've looked around and beside General Flynn, I can't find any possibilities.

[turcopolier]

jdleddell

Trump is not going to win and so the issue is unimportant. pl

[hans]

All... In case you want to view the Morell appearance on Charlie Rose here's the link... I was able to download it, all 405mb, and you may be able to too (I have a need to store such things away as exemplars of our time.)
https://charlierose.com/videos/5447

[Tunde]

Morell wants to create a "desert" and call it peace.
PL,
Northern Alliance members equivalent ? Dearlove, Scarlett, in France, Germany, Italy cf Snowden revelations.
I remember one of the charges leveled at Cheney and Libby was the "politisation " of the IC (culturally and administratively). Doesn't the IC, by allowing the Flynns and Morells of their milieu, making such unguarded remarks in a politically charged environment degrade their community to further "politisation" ?
Flynn has said some pretty hairy things re Syria. And he was touted as a Trump Nat. Sec. Adviser/ VP nominee.
(Actually I checked, he's with Trump and the majority of SSTers re Russia.......)
The Borg exists everywhere even in the IC.

[Mike]

Hans: This is from 2014

[oofda]

Colonel
I believe Gilbert & Sullivan described Morell and his ilk to a T in the "HMS Pinafore"- "Stick to your desks and never to to sea, and you may be Ruler of Queen's Navy!" Somehow there is a rule of bureaucracies that too ofte those who have minimal experience in the field get to the top.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpJ_IAUs8nI

[Cee]

Anna,

Truly horrifying.

[Ishmael Zechariah]

Re: "and so far no one I've seen in MSM has evinced any understanding what the actions he proposes imply."
I wonder if the good Morell understands what the actions he proposes imply. IMO these folks are all betting that Putin is going to blink at some point. They have never experienced an adversary who will hit back hard, nor had to face any personal accountability. Things might change this time around; the reports of the Putin-tayyip meeting are interesting.

BTW, in addition to the tasks you describe, perhaps you should check the manufacture date of your ammo, and add a couple cases of re-loadable .308(if you can find them) just in case. Useful stuff.
Ishmael Zechariah