http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-cia-workplace-20140317,0,2858175.story#axzz2wDlQlqBO
CIA suspends chief of Iran operations over workplace issues
Veteran officer Jonathan Bank is placed on leave amid a rebellion against his management style, current and former officials say.
The amount of fuckery going on at the Iran desk, I'm surprised anyone has time to be worried about "management style".
Quote from: Cain on March 20, 2014, 07:55:25 AM
The amount of fuckery going on at the Iran desk, I'm surprised anyone has time to be worried about "management style".
Yah, that's what the roomie was saying last night when I showed him this. The LA Times has ties to certain Intelligence actors (apparently), so the fact that we're seeing even this much talked about means shit went really bad at the Iran desk. A work friend just mentioned that the media spun the recent Iran negotiations as a "win" for the US/Obama, when in reality Iran has not given up any plans for enrichment.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/03/20/iran-nuclear-eu-idINDEEA2J0AZ20140320
Well, I imagine it is a "win" of a sort. Iran carries on doing what it's doing and the USA can pull the "Whoa guy, I thought you stopped that" card later when we need a scary bearded country again. Between Syria and Ukraine, no-one cares too much about Iran at the moment so it'll probably be quite easy to write a suitable narrative involving broken agreements and betrayals when the timing is more suitable.
Are you on glue?
The U.S. government secretly created a Twitter-like social media service to subvert Cuba's communist government, according to an investigative report by the Associated Press.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/03/technology/cuban-twitter/index.html
US secretly created 'Cuban Twitter' to stir unrest
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest
My roommate keeps seeing various intelligence groups behind the "Arab Spring" and follow-up "twitter-fueled revolutions". This definitely points in that direction as well.
It gets better (http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SECRET_CUBAN_TWITTER_ABRIDGED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-04-03-03-43-35).
QuoteThe social media project began development in 2009 after Washington-based Creative Associates International obtained a half-million Cuban cellphone numbers.
CAI (ho ho ho, so slick) has been accused of being a CIA front and employer of Blackwater mercenaries before now. According to its own history, it is (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Creative_Associates_International,_Inc.):
Quote"a minority women-owned professional services firm incepted in 1977. Participation, diversity, and equity have driven projects seeking to improve the lives of underserved populations in more than 68 countries to date."
Unfortunately, this drive to improvement has included working with the baby-killing, nun-raping Contras and helping in the coup which ousted President Astride of Haiti. Oh, they also got no-bid contracts to "build schools" in Iraq.
Improving lives with FREEDOMtm
And ya don't stop (http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-defends-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest-222510641.html):
QuoteThe Obama administration defended its creation of a Twitter-like Cuban communications network to undermine the communist government, declaring the secret program was "invested and debated" by Congress and wasn't a covert operation that required White House approval.
But two senior Democrats on congressional intelligence and judiciary committees said Thursday they had known nothing about the effort, which one of them described as "dumb, dumb, dumb."
I've been seeing that White House quote float around. Basically it's "We setup a legitimate service, but bundled a deniable clandestine intent into it, so now we can claim it's legitimate." Kinda flies in the face of all the memos talking about how to seed flash-mobs without tipping off the Cuban government.
I'm just loving the fact that Obama and the intelligence community seem to be going out of their way to piss in congressional cheerios. I mean, Congress is getting actually legitimately pissed at the CIA right now, and then THIS comes along.
It's like they want another Church committee.
Ha, yah I assume that's why every early US story about this had the CAI-USAID =/= CIA meme.
Hm, I wonder if there are any other "twitter-a-likes" linked to USAID.
More CIA shenanigans.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cia-used-dr-zhivago-to-subvert-soviet-union-during-cold-war-newly-declassified-documents-show/
http://ohtarzie.wordpress.com/2014/04/11/mark-ames-vs-glenn-greenwald-and-amy-goodman-on-usaid/#rssowlmlink
Apparently, Greenwald and Goodman did not know USAID's dirty past. lawl. Mark Ames schooled them.
Caught your post on Facebook. Wow.
Oh, great. More shenanigans....
'Slush fund'? USAID under fire for paying Afghan, other governments to pass laws
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/14/usaid-under-fire-for-spending-billions-on-questionable-foreign-programs/
related: there's a good Vice Magazine podcast interview with Michael German, an an FBI agent specializing in counterterrorism. German talks about what's wrong with the FBI
http://www.vice.com/read/the-vice-podcast-inside-the-fbi
the tl;dr version - German says that being asked to assess and address threats is too big of a scope - it encourages them to magnify every threat. You can't expect somebody to report honestly on how important their work is. So he thinks the intelligence community should have a risk assessment wing and a totally separate wing tasked with addressing those threats.
He also has some insight about how the FBI has been mismanaged - partly because being a field agent is attractive to people who like police work and "getting the bad guys", whereas the management career track attracts climbers, people who like 'being the boss'.
He also mentions how a lot of the bizarre enforcement issues we've seen recently originates from a very old discussion about what the difference is between a domestic terrorist and a national security threat. A national security threat is something that originates from a group overseas... so a domestic group can categorically never be a security threat. That's ultimately why things like taking videos or photographs are "suspicious activity", especially if you're a Muslim, whereas organizing anti-government protests are not "suspicious".
There are real things which harm communities, but they are not considered a "threat" because they are domestic in nature. So what does national security actually mean? He points out how the FBI identified "environmental rights activists" as a higher threat than white supremacists, even though white supremacists kill way more people.
all in all, a good listen; I found it very insightful
Quote from: Telarus on April 14, 2014, 06:18:37 PM
Caught your post on Facebook. Wow.
Oh, great. More shenanigans....
'Slush fund'? USAID under fire for paying Afghan, other governments to pass laws
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/14/usaid-under-fire-for-spending-billions-on-questionable-foreign-programs/
Oh, so the same thing that the UN, World Bank and IMF have been doing for decades? FACE OF EVIL.
Seems USAID's a bit of a hot topic lately:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-26997267
QuoteA US contractor who has been in jail in Cuba for more than four years has ended his week-long hunger strike.
In a statement released by his lawyer, Alan Gross said he suspended his fast because his mother, 91, had asked him to end it, but added that "there will be further protests to come".
Mr Gross, 64, began fasting on 2 April to protest against his treatment by both the Cuban and US governments.
He was jailed for 15 years for taking internet equipment to Cuba illegally.
"My protest fast is suspended as of today," Mr Gross said in the statement.
"There will be no cause for further intense protest when both governments show more concern for human beings and less malice and derision toward each other," he added.
QuoteThe case of Mr Gross is seen as a major obstacle to better US-Cuban ties. The two countries have not had formal diplomatic relations since 1961.
Mr Gross was arrested in 2009 while working for a firm under contract with the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Cuba considers USAID's programmes as illegal attempts by the US to undermine the island nation's Communist government.
Cuba seems to have been proven right several times over. With the latest twitter fiasco I can't see this chap walking around free anytime soon. I doubt his hunger strike will do much to sway either government as at least one of them would probably be happier with him dead.
Also, Cram, nice find. Was interesting to hear about how the FBI views themselves in relation to the larger issues. It's also quite interesting to see how this guy defines the other agencies and their scope of work.
As noted by the guy himself, the FBI clearly has very, very good PR.