Saying hello and good-bye at the public library

I waited for the woman at the library to load her returned books in the bin so I could return my one book. But I had another book in my hand I was going to donate to the library. "The Secrets we Kept" by Lara Prescott, an historical fiction about women who worked for the CIA in the 1950s to get "Dr. Zhivago" smuggled INTO the USSR to help create unrest and distrust for the Soviet government. The cover was classy and colorful (red), so she asked me what it was about. I told her I didn't particularly like it (although it is about history). It was 2014 before the CIA involvement was revealed in its role of Pasternak's famous semi-autobiographical novel about the Russian revolution. Prescott filled in the gaps with fictional D.C. women, of course, but included the actual mistress and wife of Pasternak (from diaries/letters). The stranger I'd just met expressed interest, so I handed it to her instead of donating back to the library sale. I told her I'd studied Russian in college, and she said she did too! до свида́ния we two strangers said as we parted at the library today (Russian for good-bye).

 
Prescott had a good story going, she's a fine writer, although the CIA is so creepy and the actual story of using a book to destabilize the USSR is true. But she then revealed she really wanted to write about lesbians. I finished the book, but wasn't interested in keeping it, so I gave it to a stranger.

The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott Reveals the Story Behind Doctor Zhivago - Historical Novel Society

When the CIA Used 'Dr. Zhivago' as a Cold War Weapon | HISTORY

Message from General Mike Flynn about U.S. Wars

Message on X (Twitter) from Mike Flynn

The United States of America invaded Iraq back in 2003 based on now U.S. Government debunked claims of Weapons of Mass Destruction. The very famous speech that General Colin Powell gave in the United Nations with the full weight of the CIA behind him where he said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, was all a lie. 

We then proceeded to lose so many young lives, killed and wounded. We also lost trillions of dollars from our treasury (meaning from American taxpayers). We lost a ton of prestige as well on the world stage. All for a loser endless war that now looks to be turning the tide toward war once again, but this time the tide is against the United States. 

Also, Iran is most certainly developing a nuclear weapons programs. We know this because our government under Obama and Biden have told us. These administrations are funding them to the tune of billions of dollars. This is no secret—it’s all public knowledge and those on the left appear to consider it their duty to support Iran (I really don’t know where this attitude comes from). Do these people hate America (and Israel) so much, they want to see a war or the destruction of entire societies? That’s what nuclear weapons can do.

 I can speculate and analyze all day long about this and point fingers at Obama and Kerry, the Clintons, pressure from the globalists at the WEF, or maybe it’s the CCP directing our U.S. foreign policy (I’m not kidding—at times, it feels that way).

All the money we’re pouring into Iran flows into Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran surrogates inside the Iraq Government, and many other Iranian aligned groups and individuals in the greater Middle East.

Tactically but with strategic consequence are the number of attacks on U.S. forces. That number is now north of 150 resulting in several casualties. During the previous Iraq War, there were more than 600 U.S. casualties directly caused by Iran. 

Iran has unleashed proxy wars in Israel, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, Lebanon, Red Sea, and are likely behind protests here in America as well as influencing, through their relationships with Venezuela, the invasion of our southern border. 

The big “so what” is that Iran is our enemy, not our friend. 

And what is the Biden administration’s response: Continue to send billions in aid and trade to Iran (our enemy). 

In my judgement, you cannot make peace with fanatics. For example, there were over 300K soldiers and civilians killed during the final Battle for Berlin against the Nazi's in 1945. The Nazis knew they had zero chance for victory. But that’s how fanatics operate. We have to stop dealing with fanatics.

Lastly, if we don’t focus right here at home, AMERICA FIRST, we could lose everything. So much is at stake and we’re not even allowed to close the front door to our home. I believe in God. I believe in the power of prayer. I believe that we have lost sight of the importance of God in America. To reclaim our republic as a Judeo-Christian nation built on a set of moral principles and values, we need to be fearless and we better get our act together very quickly. 

God Bless America.

https://twitter.com/GenFlynn/status/1753078333275877862?

What exactly is collusion?

 The definition is "secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose: "acting in collusion with the enemy."  John Brennan, Obama's head of CIA, is a good example.

Working with British and Estonian spies, "John Brennan’s CIA operated like a branch office of the Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of this bogus investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting maximum political damage on Trump. An official in the intelligence community tells TAS that Brennan’s retinue of political radicals didn’t even bother to hide their activism, decorating offices with “Hillary for president cups” and other campaign paraphernalia.

A supporter of the American Communist Party at the height of the Cold War, Brennan brought into the CIA a raft of subversives and gave them plum positions from which to gather and leak political espionage on Trump. He bastardized standards so that these left-wing activists could burrow in and take career positions. Under the patina of that phony professionalism, they could then present their politicized judgments as “non-partisan.” "  From The Spectator, April 17, using The Guardian, April 13.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/john-brennan-hostility-between-putin-clintons-drove-russias-actions/article/2623908

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/05/did_brennan_collude_with_foreign_spies_to_help_hillary.html

New York Times outs an undercover spy

In an article published Friday, The New York Times outed the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) top spy overseeing the organization’s efforts in Iran. The paper justified its outing of the undercover CIA spy and his role within the agency by saying it was necessary since the agent is “leading an important new administration initiative against Iran.” This is how much the media hates Donald Trump. For all progressives, Communists, leftists and Democrats, treason is just fine. Just don't use the N-word or say a 10 year old boy isn't a girl.

https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/02/new-york-times-just-outed-cia-chief-iran/

What else has no evidence?

Despite no evidence, the media have run with a suspicion of collusion and have 55% of Democrats believing that the individual elections in November were hacked by the Russians. Despite not a single leak of a meeting or discussion of Trump with Russians although there are leaks on everything else, the Democrats are preparing for impeachment. So the real threat to our free elections and constitution are the Democrats with their media handlers, not a foreign government.

http://hotair.com/archives/2017/05/23/poll-55-democrats-think-probably-definitely-true-russia-tampered-vote-totals-get-trump-elected/

Another charge for which there is no evidence, but people believe it anyway, just like the Russia-Trump collusion, is that John Brennan, the CIA director,  is a Muslim. There's no evidence he isn't. Try to prove it. But he did vote Communist in 1976. http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/politics/john-brennan-cia-communist-vote/

There's also no evidence that cradle to grave health insurance offered by the government creates a healthier nation.  Take the American Indians for example. We have 5 government health plans not counting the failing Obamacare. Democrats don't want unfairness or gaps so they are hoping we can all have the same wonderful care and health results as the Bureau of Indian Affairs has produced. Never mind that death rates for heart disease among American Indian and Alaska Native people are twice as high as the overall US population. Diabetes accounts for up to 75 percent of all cardiovascular events. Kidney disease—including chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis—represents an important epidemic among American Indian and Alaska Native people. We must all be equal and accept what the government offers native peoples. (from Healthaffairs.org)

Catholics in the CIA

"The United States is a country in which – with the recent exception of the Supreme Court – Catholics have never dominated the highest offices. Only one out of 44 US Presidents has been Catholic. The first and only Catholic Vice President is the current one, Joe Biden. Before John Kerry, the last Catholic Secretary of State was Alexander Haig, who left the post in 1982. Catholics are a rarity in other top positions such as Secretary of Defence.

By contrast, three out of the last five CIA directors have been Catholic: Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, and the current director, John Brennan. Looking back, a number of Catholics led the agency in critical periods during the Cold War. (There were no Catholic directors in the 1990s.)

Some of the most influential directors in CIA history have been Catholic – men such as Walter Bedell Smith, John McCone, William Colby and William Casey. They were not just casual Catholics. They were devout Mass-goers – in many cases, members of groups like the Knights of Malta. The conspiracy theorists usually start there, with nefarious plots about the Vatican steering world affairs. Of course, they never ask why an all-powerful Vatican can’t engineer more Catholic presidents."

Why so strong in the CIA?  A possible explanation.

ISIS has grown 4,400% under Obama!

“CIA Director John Brennan talked about his thoughts on the Paris attacks, ISIS and the possibility of terrorism on U.S. soil Monday.

In a previously arranged appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, Brennan said it is likely that ISIS has other attacks planned.”

“I don’t think we are underestimating at all the capabilities of ISIL. Its growth over the last several years in particular – but as you know, that it had its roots in al-Qaida in Iraq. It was, you know, pretty much decimated when U.S. forces were there in Iraq. It had maybe 700-or-so adherents left. And then it grew quite a bit in the last several years, when it split then from al-Qaida in Syria, and set up its own organization.”

http://time.com/4114870/paris-attacks-cia-john-brennan/

Obama’s cover up of the Syrian weapons disaster

Obama has expanded the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (called Bush’s wars by Democrats)  into about 5 more countries (depends on how you count Jordan), and is replacing Muslim dictators (secular) with Muslim jihadists. I think history will show that the so called Arab Spring of 2011 was plotted and fueled by this administration. No proof yet, but it has B.O. written all over it.

The reason 4 Americans pictured above were killed on 9/11 in Benghazi isn't that they were guarding an embassy or that a mob got out of control due to a video. They were there doing work for the CIA and trying to track down what had happened to 40 million tons of arms, which were on their way to Syria. The Syrian civil war has already killed 33,000 Syrians even though the so-called rebels have our weapons (I suspect they required training). That dictator, Assad, is no prize, but it's also none of our
business.

Our leader, our Commander in Chief, admired by Castro, Chavez and Planned Parenthood, is no prize either--probably on the level of Assad of Syria, because he would not send anyone to save the men who were there on his orders because his precious cover would be blown right before the election. He's a huge coward and traitor.

Christians were a very small minority in all those Muslim countries Obama has invaded, but at least they were allowed to live under the secular Islamist rulers. Now they will either be slaughtered because of their religion, or they will have to leave.

Now, maybe you weren't thrilled with Bush's wars, which had Congressional approval, even Joe Biden's vote, but no one but his own cronies has approved of what Obama has done, and we are
supposed to have a say through our elected representatives.

The buck stops with Obama

“Breaking news on Benghazi: the CIA spokesman, presumably at the direction of CIA director David Petraeus, has put out this statement: "No one at any level in the CIA told anybody not to help those in need; claims to the contrary are simply inaccurate. ”. . .

“It would have been a presidential decision. There was presumably a rationale for such a decision. What was it? When and why—and based on whose counsel obtained in what meetings or conversations—did President Obama decide against sending in military assets to help the Americans in need?”

 http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/petraeus-throws-obama-under-bus_657896.html

Obama, Clinton, Panetta—listen up

Let's bring all military home and stop supplying arms to Muslim fundamentalists. This whole Arab Spring Obama joy ride is a crock, and just the flip side of "nation building," only there's no plan for democracy. Let them battle it out and we'll drill for oil at home. Our Commander in Chief, our Secretary of State and our Defense Secretary are complete ______ (fill in the blank), and not one more life should be lost to their bungling.

It's one thing for a President (Bush) to say, all peoples deserve to have democracy and we'll help. It was naive, but made a lot more sense than trying to pick the winners and losers in a civil war amongst Muslim tribes, Muslim sects and Muslim dictators. Obama has been a complete failure in picking winners, whether it is green energy companies or the Muslim Brotherhood, aka Peace and Justice Party.

If an Obama supporter reads the tragic account of the last hours of the Americans in Benghazi just reported today when all those who could've helped were told to "stand down," and doesn't change her mind, she's hopelessly lost. The Seals were CIA operatives there to track down our lost arms—lost in Obama’s attempt to take sides in civil wars and he armed the wrong guys.  They are the ones who left their compound and came to the aid of the ambassador, and lost their own lives.

I know a lot of Conservatives think the economy is the critical issue, but I can't get it out of my head that the Commander in Chief of The United States Armed Forces left his men behind. No, not only left them, but made a conscious decision not to save them. Just disgusting. And shame on Colin Powell for supporting him.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/10/26/cia-operators-were-denied-request-for-help-during-benghazi-attack-sources-say/

A Brit observes President Pantywaist and asks why?

Gerald Warner at Telegraph.co.uk writes and wonders as do many of us on this side of the pond--why does Obama hate America so much?

If al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the rest of the Looney Tunes brigade want to kick America to death, they had better move in quickly and grab a piece of the action before Barack Obama finishes the job himself. Never in the history of the United States has a president worked so actively against the interests of his own people - not even Jimmy Carter.

Obama's problem is that he does not know who the enemy is. To him, the enemy does not squat in caves in Waziristan, clutching automatic weapons and reciting the more militant verses from the Koran: instead, it sits around at tea parties in Kentucky quoting from the US Constitution. Obama is not at war with terrorists, but with his Republican fellow citizens. He has never abandoned the campaign trail.

That is why he opened Pandora's Box by publishing the Justice Department's legal opinions on waterboarding and other hardline interrogation techniques. He cynically subordinated the national interest to his partisan desire to embarrass the Republicans. Then he had to rush to Langley, Virginia, to try to reassure a demoralised CIA that had just discovered the President of the United States was an even more formidable foe than al-Qaeda.

"Don't be discouraged by what's happened the last few weeks," he told intelligence officers. Is he kidding? Thanks to him, al-Qaeda knows the private interrogation techniques available to the US intelligence agencies and can train its operatives to withstand them - or would do so, if they had not already been outlawed.

So, next time a senior al-Qaeda hood is captured, all the CIA can do is ask him nicely if he would care to reveal when a major population centre is due to be hit by a terror spectacular, or which American city is about to be irradiated by a dirty bomb. Your view of this situation will be dictated by one simple criterion: whether or not you watched the people jumping from the twin towers. . .

President Pantywaist's recent world tour, cozying up to all the bad guys, excited the ambitions of America's enemies. Here, they realized, is a sucker they can really take to the cleaners. His only enemies are fellow Americans. Which prompts the question: why does President Pantywaist hate America so badly?

I really wish there were evidence to refute this.

Good source of book reviews

I read more reviews than books--occasionally even send a suggestion to my local PL. Studies in Intelligence at the CIA website is a good source, but I'd hurry. Who knows what Obama will allow in the future if he finds you (you're probably a right wing pro-life terrorist Iraq War veteran) visiting a CIA website. The latest issue reviews a book about Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) The physical journal is quite handsome, with really well balanced reviews. The reviewer makes careful note of things that matter to me--summaries, footnotes, bibliography, index, etc. I don't want a reviewer who writes like the new best friend of the author, or someone who only picks it apart.

Another book review source I really enjoy is JAMA--any issue. If you're not reading those, you're missing some excellent, thoughtful writing, even if the book might be over your level of medical knowledge. Plus, the poetry and essays are good. Great cover art. The April 1 issue has a painting of some government officials mulling over the economy.

Most of my actual links to government sources pre-date the current administration, so they may not be valid, but here's some interesting stuff about the CIA, including that 15 years ago they had their eye on religious groups.

The CIA's art collection

Nothing about the government should surprise me, but I didn't know the CIA has its own art collection. Today I picked up the CSI's Studies in Intelligence Journal, vol.52, no.2, 2008, to read

"By the end of 2008, 52 percent of CIA’s workforce will have entered on duty since 11 September 2001. CIA’s history and museum programs provide institutional cohesion to communicate CIA’s corporate culture and identity during this demographic revolution. Recent additions to the Agency’s historical holdings include intelligence-themed paintings and sculpture that record for posterity the experiences of intelligence officers in peace and war."

It was a non-circ item (from OSUL), but it is available on the web, or at least parts of it. Here's a sample of the art. The painting depicts Virginia Hall, a Baltimore native who joined the State Department in the 1930s, with many assignments abroad until an accident cost her a leg and she resigned. At the outbreak of WWII, she "joined the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). . . Her fluency in French landed her a clandestine assignment in Lyons, where she went to work developing the area’s resistance operations. Over the next 15 months, every British agent arriving in France passed through her flat for instructions, counterfeit money, and contacts. In addition, she orchestrated supply drops and helped endangered agents escape to England. Betrayed in November 1942, she had to use her own escape route out of France, just steps ahead of her now infamous pursuer, Klaus Barbie, “the butcher of Lyons.”

Hall then joined the Special Operations Branch of the Office of Strategic Services in March 1944 and asked to return to occupied France. OSS promptly granted her request and reinfiltrated her aboard a British PT boat. Disguised as a farmwoman, she carried cheese to local villages to count German troops and identify drop zones for the Allied invasion to come." After the war she received the Distinguished Service Cross—the only one given to a civilian woman during that war. "Hall later worked for the CIA, serving in many jobs as one of CIA’s first female operations officers."

Throw in some romance (Branjelina?) and this would be a great movie. She married her husband, Paul, in 1950 who was also an OSS officer. Her story was told in The Wolves at the Door : The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy by Judith L. Pearson, The Lyons Press, 2005. That left leg looks pretty real to me in the painting. Maybe the artist didn't know?

4424

CIA Freedom of Information web site

In 2000, before 9/11 and the current war, the CIA prepared a 15 year forecast. [These are scanned, not digitized, so not particularly easy to read.] It is really instructive to go back and see what career government intelligence employees were warning our elected leaders about. Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)were probably the most consistent warning. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Iraq were said to have "the capability to strike the U.S. and the potential for unconventional delivery of WMD by both states and nonstate actors." I'm sure this is not the only document in there with this information, because we know a number of prominent Democrats like Kennedy, Edwards and Kerry were beating the WMD drum in the late 90s, but then backed off when a President not of their party took their warnings seriously.

There were erroneous predictions about the global economy, and we were in a down turn then and no one foresaw the incredible boom of the 21st century. Although reading between the lines, they were general enough to be true--such has Europe and Japan needed to manage their aging work force or there would be consequences (well, duh!). If the global energy supplies were disrupted, it could have a devastating affect on the whole world (take that you "it's all about oil" peaceniks!). Also, this interesting tidbit: "Recent estimates indicate 80% of the world's available oil still remains in the ground, as does 95% of the world's natural gas." p. 17

I'd say the report was spot on about information technology and biotechnology predictions, if anything, it is a bit sluggish as those fields blossom like mold in a damp basement. The report was pretty accurate here, too: "Most anti-U.S. terrorism will be based on perceived ethnic religious or cultural grievances." Now, I wonder who plays that up and then asks, "What can we do to regain our place in the world and get along?"

For a 51 page report, the amount devoted to global climate change/warming is extremely modest, or maybe it just seems that way given the constant coverage we have today. It did address the "environmental neglect" of the formerly Marxist countries as a problem, and predicted the failure of the Kyoto Protocol, not because of the danger of a Republican administration, but because of the growing economies of China and India.

But it was soooo on target with comments about religion, I almost couldn't believe it: "Activist components** of [Christians and Muslims] and other religious groupings will emerge to contest such issues as genetic manipulation, women's rights, and the income gap between rich and poor. A wider religious or spiritual movement also may emerge, possibly linked to environmental values." Someone in the CIA spotted the rise of pantheism as a world religion. Good job!

You can do a dual search: first search your topic (Iraq= >1000 documents) then limit by year (2007=26). The date will most likely refer to the year it was "released," so you can easily see what was being said or researched in the 90s and review how that works out today. Check out NIE 2002-16HC, "Iraq's continuing programs for WMD, October 2002" which makes a "key judgement" that Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the UN restrictions. It estimated 100-500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents including mustard, sarin, GF and VX stockpiles.

**"Religious voices are part of a two-week-long United Nations conference on climate change being held in Bali. Delegations from the World Council of Churches, the Vatican, and many Catholic orders are among the participants. The conference plans to develop an international pact to battle global warming. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and other religious leaders urged the delegates to take aggressive action to protect the environment." Report from Bali