Reality Can Sometimes Suck Less

Remember Viktor Bout, the real life "Lord of War?" The highly evil arms dealer and inspiration for the movie. Well in the movie (spoiler alert) the arms dealer is arrested but released, due to his powerful friends in the United States government.

Well, as it turns out, sometime you can be too cynical. Not only are the Feds not springing Bout, they are extraditing him from Thailand and are going to try him on a whole host of charges.

So hey, the world doesn't suck as much as you though. We get the Hollywood ending in real life.

High Profile

Call it a new phenomenon: the rise of the celebrity spy. The busted Russian are famous. Angelina Jolie has invited busted Russian spy Anna Chapman to the Moscow premier of her new spy thriller. It was bound to happen sooner or later, fictional spy fill our media wall to wall. And the busted Russians are perfect. Clean-up, sexy, and they didn't hurt anybody. They were here to spy on our cocktail circuit and did a bad job of it. Nice,friendly spies we can put on magazine covers and invite down the red carpet.

Vast and Growing

Today's must read is a special report from the Washington Post on the nation's vast and growing intelligence-industrial complex. Intelligence in this country is first and foremost an industry and there is a lot of money to be made. A lot of people make a living pumping out top secret reports. The question is, is mass-producing reports like Ford puts out cars really the way to keep America safe.

Can You Un-Defect? Is that allowed in this Game?

If intriguing international spy stuff keeps hitting the front pages like this, I may not need to start watching Covert Affairs to get my tradecraft fix. Of course Piper Perabo makes a strong counter-argument. I could stand to get hotness with my spying. But wait! Real life offers that too!

Tradec for Value or Numbers

Looks like the spies we caught are going to be made part of a swap for ones the Russians caught. My question is - do we trade for quality or just numbers? Is one James Bond worth three ordinary hack spies, or are they ranked by the secrets they stole. Of course, if you get caught that means that you are not the best.

The Old "Brush Pass" Move

Great real world/spy world match-up in the headlines, with ten members of Russian spy ring caught and a Federal indictment that reads like Smiley's People.

Best Stories

You only get the best stories after their gone. Angus Thuermer, 92 CIA agent is now gone, so we can tell his story.

My favorite: he once smuggled Joseph Stalin's daughter out of New Delhi in his luggage.

He also served as the top CIA public affairs official, which I imagine is a pretty easy gig. "No Comment."

Today's Reading

Malcolm Gladwell on espionage

Spy World/Real World

So last week a suicide bomber in Afghanistan killed seven CIA guys and a Jordanian Intelligence officer, the bomber turned out to be a trusted informer for Jordanian Intelligence. The incident is shining a light on the US-Jordan intelligence relationship.

You know where I first learned of the US-Jordan intelligence relationship? The movie Body of Lies. This is how my education in tradecraft works. I see the movie version, then I find out about the real.

UPDATE: Wow. David Ignatius, columnist for the Washington Post, wrote the book Body of Lies was based on. He also writes about the real stuff, and seems is a bit of a hack. All this real and fiction spy stuff is getting mixed up.

I'm not sure who to trust.

The Magic of the CIA

No, no its not a code word or tech that looks like magic.

They really did use magic.

Lied to Congress

Well now:

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon E. Panetta, has told the House Intelligence Committee in closed-door testimony that the C.I.A. concealed “significant actions” from Congress from 2001 until late last month, seven Democratic committee members said.

What was lied about?

Woh

Intrigue extreme:

Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington.

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Snip

And that, contrary to reports that the Harman investigation was dropped for “lack of evidence,” it was Alberto R. Gonzales, President Bush’s top counsel and then attorney general, who intervened to stop the Harman probe.

Why? Because, according to three top former national security officials, Gonzales wanted Harman to be able to help defend the administration’s warrantless wiretapping program, which was about break in The New York Times and engulf the White House.

Forget the movies, this is the real deal.

Master of Spys

Watched Body of Lies recently. Very serviceable modern espionage movie, very informed, very slick. I never get tired of Ridley Scott's style, no matter how many visual tricks he pulls out. Good work from the stars - Leo as the hero, of course. And Russell Crowe makes a great moral cesspool as his CIA boss. Do you guys like Crowe better in his made of iron body or his spare tire body? I think his acting is better when he carries a spare.

But the guy who steals the movie is Mark Strong as Hani Salaam, Director of Jordanian Intelligence. Salaam is cultured, sophisticated and polite. He is a certain ally in the shifting, uncertain world of espionage. And he will burn your ass to the ground with supreme ruthlessness if you cross him.

Which got me to thinking about spymasters, a type of character who've I've always found fascinating as part of my larger infatuation with all things spycraft. So I present to you The Craig's top five spymasters of all time:

5. Peter Firth as Harry Pearce in Spooks. My new ideal. Alternatively ruthless and compassionate. A morally compromised moral center. The spymaster as a human being.

4. Mark Strong as Hani Salaam in Body of Lies. See above. Do not lie to him.

3. Alec Guinness as George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Mr Smiley is a different kind of creature. The spymaster as shlub. Yeah he's over the hill, on the outs with his bosses, and his wife left him. But he's going to find that mole, damn the consequences.

2. "Wild Bill" Donovan as himself. Founded the OSS, which became the CIA. Played the game during WW2 and won. For real, unlike the rest of these fictional losers.

1. Judi Dench as M in Casino Royale. Sure, there were other M's and they all disapproved of James Bond's antics. But when Dame Dench disapproves of Bond, I sit up straighter in my theater seat.

Meet Your New Spymaster

That's Leon Panetta, former Clinton Chief-of-Staff, founder of think tanks and all around mench and the next Director of the CIA. Not an experienced intelligence hand, but very good on the torture issue. In fact, I think the main reason that Obama went outside the intel community for this pick is that it is very hard to find any experienced field hands that hadn't been tainted by rubbing up against torture policies.

Start with somebody who will not destroy our moral standing in the world. The rest of the sneaky crap he can pick up as he goes.

How to Become Batman

Totally fascinating Scientific American article on the possibility of becoming Batman for real. The man who did the research is both a professor of neuroscience and kinesiology and a black belt, so I'm totally buying this. One of the great things about Batman is he always seems more possible than any other superhero. No radioactive spiders or alien parents needed. What would it take?

How many of us do you think could become a Batman?
If you found the percentage of billionaires and multiply that by the percentage of people who become Olympic decathletes, you could probably get a close estimate.

Now admittedly, that's not many, but all you need is one.


Via

Burn Notice Tonight

Smart. Sexy. Fun. Teaches you how to be a spy. What more do you want?

How To

Today, we learn how to do surveillance. As done by the FBI.

Comando Bloggers!

From Danger Room:

A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

Now you may be thinking "government propaganda" but really its a chance to serve the military from the comfort of your own home. You could be a part of U.S. Special Operations Command, thats the special forces yo and never leave your pajamas.

Anyone can Play

Holy Crap, anyone can be an arms dealer these days:

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

Apparently you can be some punk off the street, suck eggs, and still score 300 million dollar government contracts. This is a total waste of taxpayer money. If my hard earned dollars are going to fund arms deals I want top notch arms and top notch arms dealers! I want deals brokered by shady, ruthless, internationally connected underworld figures, not a "22-year-old licensed masseur." We should really get more out of our money than this.

Taking Down the Lord of War

A Russian businessman known as one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers was arrested in Thailand on Thursday as part of an American-led sting operation. If it sounds like a movie that because it is.