The Colonel's Corner Safe for Democracy Part 50 (52)

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Transcript

0:02 Good afternoon, everyone. Wow. Afternoon, Colonel. Wow. So I spent like literally my entire day putting together a post that I just made that links Nancy Pelosi's dad to Operation Gladio.

0:40 And Warhamster needs to be in here because it shows the direct link to the Scottish Reich that we were talking about yesterday to Gladio as well. It's a crazy find. It's literally crazy.

1:09 It's a long post and I know people get aggravated with my long post, but I don't care. You can't post about the stuff that we talk about in a short post. It literally makes no sense. These people spent decades destroying the sovereignty of countries and it's all linked together and you can't do that in a short post. Sorry, not sorry.

1:40 All right, so he left off during Bush Sr.'s administration and Webster's tenure at the CIA. So he didn't last after the Desert Storm. He ends up stepping down.

2:08 a few weeks after Desert Storm. And of course, based on what we were covering yesterday, no one missed him because no one liked him to begin with. And so the White House announced his resignation on May 8th, 1991. And President Bush said that he had yet to think of a successor, but was very complimentary of Robert Gates.

2:39 The same day, Bush called Gates while they were on board Air Force One and asked him if he would accept the CIA nomination. The Iran-Contra investigations were ongoing at the time. And he would definitely not be cleared until the final special prosecutor's report.

3:12 was done, but that was, I mean, we know now that was going to be two years. So Alan Fiers, the guy we talked about through this whole series, pleaded guilty in July of 1991. And Gates was fearful that he would be implicated since he pled guilty because they worked together on many of the Iran-Contra details.

3:45 Gates later said that that was like the lowest point in his life. He had the CIA directorship at his fingertips and it was like just outside of his grasp. So Prado says that Gates realized that it had been a generation since William Colby had been confirmed.

4:16 Gates had spent his entire career around all of these very controversial people. In the summer of 91, where there was confirmation that Soviet Union was going to collapse, which of course the CIA failed to predict, and Gates was caught up in that too, because he'd been in the CIA almost this entire time.

4:50 There were lots of congressional charges being floated around that Robert Gates had basically politicized intelligence. And that took the center stage when confirmation hearings opened in September. So there was an examination and Marvin Otz, OTT, who was the deputy director.

5:20 of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff at the time. He recalls that there was a predisposition to let Gates sell through. The committee staff and members saw the appearance of a succession of analysts who gave chapter and verse on many of Gates' intervention in intelligence analysis. In other words, he was...

5:51 compromising the analyst work to craft narratives. Reports on Afghanistan and Nicaragua were among those that they cited that he basically had cooked the books on. Evidence also emerged that several current employees, reluctant to openly criticize him because he may be their new boss, saw him playing an interventionalist role.

6:23 between politics and intelligence and crafting intelligence to support the political agenda. The Gates presented kind of a preemptive defense, attempting to disarm his critics, basically showing how, trying to counteract the narrative that he was crafting intelligence. Then a number of former analysts went before the committee to dispute the rendering.

7:00 Most notably among them was Mel Goodman. He had been a colleague for years. Jennifer Glodsman, a former Soviet analyst, and Harold Ford. Yeah, the same Harold Ford that we know now. Alan Fiers appeared as part of the committee's fairly extensive coverage of Iran-Contra, but his testimony did Gates no harm. He was going to protect him.

7:35 Gates himself returned for something fairly dramatic around the follow-up testimony refuting critics. The hearings became the most extensive examination of U.S. intelligence since the Church and Pike investigations. Work at Laneley basically ground to a halt because everybody was riveted to the television. For them, this was their O.J. Simpson moment. The Intelligence Committee.

8:06 wrestled with the dilemma. President Bush intervened, invoking party discipline to ensure his nominee got backed. Oates believes Gates appealed to the White House to do this. Committee Chairman David Boren staged his own covert operation, acting impartially in the camera's eye while laboring secretly to build support for Gates. Boren agreed.

8:37 to one of the most extensive committee reports on a nomination ever, in which his committee attempted to reconcile Gates' testimony with the charges against him. In other words, you have Congress actively advocating for the CIA director and negating actual critiques of his affiliation with all of these covert operations.

9:07 For all the drama that went on, the sequel did not live up to the fears. Director Gates indicated that there were flexibility with the CIA. He showed a healthy appreciation for the need to change while not really changing anything at all.

9:37 In 1992, Gates spoke before a conference of diplomatic historians and promised that the agency would open up and be less secretive about covert operations. And to show their intentions, the CIA declassified a large portion of the body of national intelligence estimates on the Soviet Union. They also sponsored a conference on that period of time.

10:08 One of Gates' study groups considered politicalization, although its instructions were drawn so narrowly that they were sure to not find any. He also gathered a large contingent of officers in March of 1992 to talk about all of this, directly confronting the matter that was clouding his confirmation.

10:38 He squared the circle by acknowledging that whether or not there had been politicalization in the past, we needed to not do that anymore. Another task force focused on covert action. Among the novelties there, a delegation of senior clandestine service officers met with scholars at the Institute of Policy Studies to solicit their view on the direction the agency should do in the future.

11:12 They didn't flinch when told that the director ought to abolish the Directorate of Operations. Of course, they weren't going to do that. And it wasn't going to be in the final report that they said that. But Thomas Twinton, who was the deputy director of the DO, was placed on notice that they're going to have to be a lot more careful.

11:43 who thought nothing of rejecting a FOIA request for mongoose documents, whose substance was already in the church committee report, was forced to be a little bit more, less forceful in his opinions in public. The National Center to Target Human Intelligence Assets flowed from Gates' concern for more spies.

12:15 We need more spies. The Directorate of Operations officers in the field met with silence when they proposed new operations or recruitments. Iran-Contra showed that Langley would not back its officers in trouble and now morale was suffering. One Latin American division field man told his teammates, quote, pay attention. This is the end of our era, unquote.

12:43 Another clandestine officer said, quote, we were not listening. Operation officers felt they had been the scapegoat of failed White House policy. We do not hear the call to do business in a new way, in a way that would be attuned to the attitudes of the post-Cold War in the 1990s, unquote. In this climate, they were feeling like they had been left out to dry.

13:13 And of course, Robert Gates was the face of that at this point. As far as covert actions were concerned, one of the operatives pointed that part of the CIA's problem was rooted in Reagan-era practices in which covert operations were conducted openly and made the subject of political debate and partisan accusation all to avoid explanation when the projects failed.

13:43 She went on to say, quote, the CIA entered a new phase of overt covert operations, doing them in plain sight, but then pretending that they were covert operations, which of course everybody inside the CIA saw as an oxymoron. The consequences of acting so overtly as they did during the Iran-Contra scandal included constant demands for specific

14:17 Actions such as funding from Congress, operational details were exposed. Political people in Congress could not be trusted. This magnified the fear of abandonment of CIA agents and the people that they had in the field. This overt action amplified tensions between the CIA and the Pentagon as well, especially the special warfare community.

14:53 The CIA's role became that of a bag man, hiring proxies, whether foreign security services or local factions. Paramilitary capabilities morphed, and there were cutbacks in Special Activities Division as a result of this. The growing importance of using proxies had implications for covert action, especially...

15:21 under the mantra that they had used throughout this entire time, that they were actually promoting democracy. As director, Robert Gates' vision involved gradual planned change. He put teeth into the idea of support for military operations. One of the task force worked on that subject alone. He tried to turn the agency toward a challenge of proliferation and transnational threats. You know.

15:52 like the soon-to-be radical Islamic terrorist boogeyman as opposed to the communist boogeyman. He wanted more and better training for analysts, even though they don't pay any attention to the analysts when they report actual intelligence. When Gates came to Langley, 60% of the CIA budget was aimed at Russia. When he left, that figure had dropped to 13%.

16:20 Gates never completed his mission. George H.W. Bush lost the 1992 election to Clinton. A few days later, on November 7th, Gates announced his retirement. He stayed only long enough for Clinton's new CIA director. The lame duck President Bush took an action that brought Langley its first tragedy in the support for military operations arena.

16:51 On December 9th, 1992, if Americans remember anything about the U.S. in Somalia, other than the tragic battle popularized by Black Hawk Down, it is the midnight invasion of this East African country where Marines landed in the glare of lights of TV crews. Now, again, this harkens back to one of the points that we've made throughout this entire study.

17:22 of these particular controversial operations done in the middle of losing an election and the inauguration. There's repeat after repeat after repeat throughout the decades since the creation of the CIA, where the president will do the most controversial things in order to set up the president of the next thing and not have any of it actually reflect on their.

17:52 record because it's like, hey, most of these do not come to fruition until after the swearing in of the next president. They fell short on this one. The Somali operation was typical of US military actions during the 90s, quote unquote, humanitarian interventions. President Bush made the decision around Thanksgiving after he knew he lost the election. Somalia had become a failed state.

18:26 Not because the CIA wasn't involved, because they were. They were intimately involved in creating it as a failed state. The forces that had arrayed in Somalia overthrew Mohamed Siari, who had been the leader of Somalia for 20 years. The warlords were trying to divide up the country. There was chaos everywhere.

19:02 The Bush administration had actually evacuated its embassy in Mogadishu. Until then, the Somali capital, several thousand American citizens left at the same time that the Gulf War had started, which was well before that. By Bush's final days, Somalia had declined further with gunmen walking the streets.

19:33 and pickup trucks or four-wheel drive vehicles equipped with machine guns doing whatever they wanted. International Aid Group was unable to distribute food. The UN created a mission in the spring of 1992 because you want to put civilians in the middle of all that shit. By that fall, the warlords had basically

20:03 taken all of those supplies, just like what we see happening now, where they take the supplies and then sell them in black market. And there were Somalias starving. Having lost the election, he decided to go ahead with an effort to intervene. He could get the American troops out by inauguration day and leave the White House on the crest of a humanitarian triumph. That was his justification.

20:37 One reason the TV crews were set up on the beach was that the CIA cleared the way. Sounds like a setup. Michael Shacklin, former deputy director of the station in Mogadishu, returned to help make this intervention possible. Isn't that nice? Langley had included Mogadishu among the African missions that it closed. But here they are.

21:11 Shanklin arrived at the airfield north of the city with the CIA team to reactivate his old network. Among his assets had been a top aide to Mohammad Farhad Hadin, one of the most powerful warlords who controlled much of Mogadishu and was responsible for getting rid of the dictator, the man who held that entire place together under the Iron Fist.

21:42 Whether you like it or not, just like Qaddafi, when they leave, the entire thing falls apart. That man had been on the payroll of Shacklin. The CIA had apprised Hadin of the impending U.S. intervention. In other words, setting them up. On December 3rd, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved this expansion. Some 28,000 troops were slated for the operation.

22:16 most of them American, walking into a death trap. The night of the landing, Shacklin's people watched the beaches. American troops quickly dispersed through Mogadishu, creating a main base at the international airport. Heavy transports began arriving with army soldiers to bolster the Marines and then foreign contingents. Troop convoys spread out into the interior and detachments moved by sea.

22:49 to points on the Somali coast. The CIA facilitated these moves in the same way that it had connected with Hadid. For example, a few days after the initial disembarkment, agency operatives teamed with U.S. diplomats and international peacekeepers to convince the Somalis guarding a large island base not to contest its takeover, soon the center of helicopter missions to other towns. The chopper raid

23:19 Tumarka in January was carried off in exactly the same way. The first American death of the Somali operation was in fact a CIA assignee, Sergeant Larry Friedman of Delta Force, detached to work with the CIA. Conditions were never easy. Unlike the military, who traveled in armed convoys and large helicopters,

23:46 CIA officers moved one or a few at a time and never had the same priority for reinforcement. Yeah. Shacklin confronted the chaos soon after the invasion as he drove CIA's new station chief to meet an agent. Gunmen stopped them. One grabbed the fancy assault weapon Shacklin had in their vehicle. They did get away with their lives and Shacklin's asset was so well connected that he could actually recover the rifle.

24:17 Still, as security deteriorated, the CIA people were forced to surround themselves with protective details, which made clandestine movement impossible. Mike Shacklin had one major advantage. As an African American, he could at least blend in. There were no American withdrawals before Clinton's inauguration. Instead, the commitment endured several more months. In March of 93,

24:45 the UN set up a multinational force to replace Americans who continued to supply. Most of the US troops had left by May. Clinton exercised no personal supervision over any of this. His NSC deputies committee considered Somalia nine times before the climax of the action, but the president never pulled together his principles. By July,

25:15 There was about 21,000 troops. The U.S. had nearly 4,000. Pakistan had sent a large contingent as well, almost 5,000, which is interesting because we're just out of Pakistan and Afghanistan, right? So these Pakistan contingents are the people that the CIA trained in Pakistan. Italy also had 2,500 and you would...

25:48 ordinarily find that kind of strange, except for the fact that Somalia used to be a colony of Italy. A Turkish general held top command. Major General Thomas Montgomery was the U.S. senior troop commander. The U.N. also changed the mission. Where the peacekeepers had simply been directed to ensure the aid reached the people, now the U.N. wanted to help Somali regain a footing in the nation.

26:25 You know, while our troops are still on the ground, we're no longer just feeding people. We're now going to actually get into action. To accomplish this, the U.N. appointed a special representative, an American retired Admiral Jonathan Howell. Previously in the White House as Deputy Security Advisor, he had been Robert Gates' replacement. Admiral Howell had a long interest in the use of force.

26:55 an attitude that did not serve him well in Mogadishu. They called it the dish. That was the nickname for the Somali capital. Spooks and soldiers labored amidst intense heat. The services did what they could to pass time. One American recalls a woman disc jockey who entertained them in the morning. That sounds familiar. Basically blaring.

27:31 um music from armed forces radio the um dj would say keep your head down in the volume up mike shacklin performed in an assignment that he didn't want code name condor shacklin had had his share of heat and sun as a marine major in vietnam as one of the do's tiny cadre of black case officers

28:07 He had been certain of years in the sun and he had gotten them. Sudan, Algeria, Jordan, Chad, then Somalia for the first time. Yeah, that's interesting knowing what we know now about all of those. So he's definitely one of the covert guys where they're looking at regime change. Shacklin had less than a week at Langley before pressed into service.

28:37 He had also had an abbreviated tour in Liberia, which is really interesting. Shacklin's request was for a place where the water runs and the lights work. Instead, he got Somalia. As the UN built up, Shacklin's relationship became complicated. The UN had an intelligence unit camouflaged as an information center. Huh, almost like they're the CIA too.

29:06 U.S. Central Command built up its own intelligence support element with 80 people. Then came the CIA station. At first, it was just a couple of rooms. Then it moved out near the base at the airport. Soon the station became overrun. They had dozens of communication and technical specialists with six case officers.

29:34 Langley's cadre for the DISH was interesting. The DO clearly chose security specialists over covert operators. African Division Chief William Pickney, a veteran of the 1980s ISI Afghan war, reached out to Garrett Jones, then completing his Army War College, CIA going to Army War College.

30:06 Nothing to see here. Jones had served in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, but his thesis had concerned intelligence support to UN peacekeeping missions. And he had also been a Miami police officer. That's interesting. Oh, Miami police officer, right around the time when we started trafficking drugs into Miami. That's crazy.

30:41 Jones was the new station chief. His deputy, John Spinelli, his codename was Leopard. He had also been a police officer. Where? In New York City. That's crazy. Oh, and his previous assignment? Rome, of course. Spinelli knew nothing whatsoever about African. The only foreign language he spoke was Italian.

31:12 He had been born and raised in Rome until he was 12 years old, which tells you his parents were probably State Department or foreign officers as well. That language was useful in the dish because it was an Italian former colony and there were still lots of people there that spoke Italian. Jones went out in August of 1993 aboard an agency shuttle.

31:46 a blacked out C-47 that the CIA had reconditioned. By the time Garrett Jones arrived, the fat was already in the fire. Warlord Adid, uncomfortable with US presence, became more and more hostile and UN officials tried to preserve the relationship. Their advice to Admiral Howe was to do the same. One source told reporters,

32:17 of the outgoing U.S. military commander's comment to Howe. Look, do not take on Adid. Whatever you do, don't. You have to understand who he is in the country. Don't make him an enemy. But the dish became tenser by the day. Adid worried that the other warlords were gaining on him. And they saw him as a traitor for working with the CIA.

32:50 A CIA report on June 21st pictured Adid as a canny opportunist and a disruptive force among the Somali politics. How do we always link up with those guys every single time? In early June, two dozen Pakistani soldiers had been killed from an ambush by Adid. So he's now actually killing the UN forces.

33:20 The Pakistani soldiers had been attacked just after inspecting Hadid's headquarters and radio station. In Washington, the NSC Deputies Committee adopted a four-phase operation aimed at Hadid. So the very guy they said, don't take on, we're going to take on. A week later, the U.S. 10th Mountain Division raided the radio station and command post. No Hadid. U.N. troops manned security cordons and raided.

33:50 Weapon caches, because there's always going to be some of them. The UN captured 30 technicals, but no warlord. And a Moroccan battalion was ambushed next. Howe then issued a warrant for Adid's arrest. The raids and the warrant made the UN and the warlord adversaries.

34:15 When Howe ordered another special operations mission, an air attack by heavily armed AC-130 gunships, the gloves came off. Do you see how this just actually, at no point does anybody say, get the hell out of there. These people are crazy. We don't need to kill Americans under a UN mission. Nope, nobody says that. The one guy that they knew.

34:46 would destroy him, just had a target put on his head. Admiral Howe demanded U.S. reinforcements in a parallel effort to take down the warlord. American commanders also asked for heavy tanks. A July 19th CIA report placed responsibility for Somalia's predicament on Adid's shoulders. Defense Secretary Les Aspin, oh, and let me tell you about him.

35:18 Holy crap, what a waste of air. He rejected the tanks because we don't want to protect the people that you just set up. But he said, hey, I'll give you some more people. Bill Clinton writes that Pentagon estimates were that the effort had only a 50-50 chance of success and half that probability of taking Hadid alive. But he signed off on all of it.

35:56 In late August, Task Force Ranger, a contingent of 400 special ops troops with 16 helicopters, a Delta Force element plus a company of Rangers deployed to the dish. Mortars shelled the airport as they landed. Welcome to the dish. Major General William Garrison, Delta Commander, led the unit. Garrett Jones came to see him.

36:26 telling Garrison that the CIA worked for him. Case officer Buffalo came with Task Force Rangers as an intelligence support team. Yeah, because we want CIA being our intelligence. Garrison sent one of his own people to the CIA station as a liaison. Years later, Garrett Jones wrote an article he describes as a briefing he wishes he had given to the Task Force Ranger.

36:59 Jones would have begun by noting the types of CIA people a soldier might meet, then the functions of a national intelligence support team versus a station. The Dish, of course, had an improvised and very basic station. Protecting sources restricts the data the CIA can give, while the likelihood of unforeseen necessities, you know, like a rescue mission,

37:25 requires that possibilities be reviewed at the outset, not in the heat of the moment. So the CIA will not give the military the appropriate intelligence, nor do they even anticipate after attacks that have killed UN people that you may need to actually launch a rescue mission. Nope, no plan for that.

38:02 Everyone should expect spies to become compromised, ending key intelligence when needed most. The spooks and soldiers should at least use the same maps and be able to understand each other. But not when you're dealing with the CIA. Jones might have added that the CIA officers should avoid extravagant promises of cooperation since ultimately they answered to Langley and not the military commanders.

38:37 We still haven't learned that lesson, by the way. About the time Task Force Ranger reached the dish, the CIA lost its prize agent. Playing Russian roulette with aides, the wrong chamber in his revolver came up and the man pointed the gun at his own head. Mike Shacklin tried to reconstitute the network under one of the aides.

39:01 but deteriorating security now forced Condor to use a protective detail. 15 men, including four Navy SEALs, restricting its mobility. The safe house Shacklin used in northern Mogadishu sprouted so many antennas, the locals called it the CNN house. Nothing suspicious about that at all. After a few weeks, Condor heard that Adid knew about him. Shacklin

39:33 had to get out. Choppers picked up his team one night at a nearby soccer field. See ya, you can get out. Leave all of the other people as sitting ducks. General Garrison began new raids, demonstrating the poor intelligence and making his unit a laughingstock. The first went against a house Adid supposedly had been in occasionally. Troopers wrote down

40:05 from the helicopters and captured the occupants. It just so happened to be UN relief workers. Then came an operation targeting the compound used by the Russians during the days of Syed Bari. The Rangers got into a firefight, but there was no warlords. The same thing happened on the next mission. The CIA tried for better intelligence. That didn't work. Some say the dish had regressed.

40:39 To basically a pre-electronic age, despite all of the technology, they're blind. Because they're dealing with people who don't communicate that way. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure that out. The warlord certainly minimized his use of any open air communication. Garrison went ahead with a raid on Adi's radio broadcast facility. Nothing.

41:11 On at least one occasion, CIA informants were trapped in an artillery bombardment of Somali positions, retaliating for attacks on the UN. Another time, the CIA and military got into a fight over cross-border missions, which the soldiers interpreted as an attack across a border, while the spooks were simply talking about putting a spy on a bus into the warlord's dominated area. Huh.

41:42 John Spinelli came up with a fresh angle, news that a couple of Adid's bodyguards were ready to betray him for reward money. They only had to be picked up and spirited out of the zone. Jones had a bad feeling about the operation, but left it up to his deputy. Spinelli scouted the area by chopper and returned with four CIA bodyguards early the next morning. In the interval,

42:07 Italian peacekeepers responsible for that sector began handing over to Nigerians, and the Somalis attacked them. Sapele's jeeps were caught in the fighting. Spinelli was shot in the neck, a CIA casualty. General Garrison had him flown to Ramstein for treatment. Mike Shacklin maintained contact with a couple of teams of gunmen who had worked for his network.

42:40 When one spotted Adid Lieutenant, the Rangers made a new raid. Troops arrived within half an hour, but nothing. Another Condor brainstorm resulted in the sole result of the campaign. Shacklin remembered a plan to have his top agent give Adid a walking stick with a concealed tracking device. What the fuck? You just remembered that? After all of this shit?

43:13 Condor asked Jones what had happened to it, and the station chief found it in a storeroom. Shacklin passed the stick to an agent who gave it to an aide, Osman Otto, who was Adid's financier. The CIA used a helicopter to monitor movements of whoever had the stick. The chopper followed the device as a car stopped at a gas station.

43:41 The Delta Force made an instant drop-in, capturing Otto. Admiral Howe radiated optimism. Nothing's going their way. You're taking casualties, but hey, let's be optimistic. Others had a sense of foreboding. A fresh four-point plan approved by the NSC Deputy Committee on August 16th was not too different.

44:16 than the old one. Garrett Jones saw a report from headquarters called Looming Foreign Policy Disaster. Langley's pressured the station to advise U.S. operations and intentions, which left Jones angry at being asked to spy on his own side instead of the enemy. In October, a few days after the auto capture, he cabled Bill Pickney

44:43 an eyes-only message complaining that the Delta Force had been misused, that this myopic focus on Hadid would not solve all of Somali's problems, and that Jonathan Howe had no idea what he was doing. Things are bad and getting worse, was his quote. Pickney told the station chief to shut up and get on with the mission. The next day, the Battle of Mudisho happened. So they were warned. They know.

45:20 and they were told to shut up. Cheetah, one of Jones' case officers, was in charge of the newest network, based on a splinter group from Adid's forces. Early on October 3rd, Cheetah reported a gathering of Adid's top aides. Warthog, the CIA officer now handling the Delta support team, radioed that the agent should indicate the building by stopping his car next to it.

45:52 and putting up the hood. The agent complied. Garrison ordered a raid. Jones, standing next to him, cabled this to Langley, but the initial reports were all good. In the space of minutes, success turned to disaster as a chopper, damaged, went down. And for hours, the focus began saving the crew and the security team. Then the men who went to rescue them. More helicopters were lost and damaged.

46:18 as were vehicles for the quick reaction forces sent in on the ground. Today, it's believed that the early action of, you'll guess it, it was Al-Qaeda terrorists that was responsible for all of this. That would be the CIA trained people from the Mujahideen that started Al-Qaeda? Sure.

46:47 The next morning, General Garrison presided over a gloomy review at his command post. Military action to rescue the missing was ruled out. Sending out choppers to call the men's names on loudspeakers, trivial as it seems, became the choice. Military and spooks turned to the UN representative present, Kenneth Kane, who felt like for the first time he had been called upon in law school.

47:12 Cain said his job was to listen to the options and then report to the UN command. UN command is an oxymoron, I'm sorry. Garrett Jones sneered, why don't you go talk to some imam and ask him for help? Because that's the equivalent of asking the UN for help. 18 American troops were killed, another 84 wounded in a gun battle.

47:46 Another American, one of the chopper pilots, was captured and his body dragged through the streets. It was recovered afterwards only by making a deal with the elusive Hadid. The U.S. would refrain from any further retaliation. The task force ranger now packed up and went home, which they should have done from the beginning. Admiral Howe left too, replaced by his predecessor, Robert Oakley.

48:16 who had gotten along with Adid, and the UN command made a truce with the warlords. When the UN pulled out the dish in 1995, their information unit left behind several boxes of US intelligence documents, causing more headaches later. In a way, it had been Saigon all over again. A senior officer from the Latin Division replaced Garrett Jones, who retired in 97.

48:45 John Spinelli resigned in March of 1998 after failing to get the CIA to change its disability rules to match those of other federal agencies. He later went to court to force that change. At last report, the litigation continued. Mike Shaplin received an intelligence star for his bravery at roping in all of those American military troops that were killed and injured.

49:17 He got an intelligence star. That's just crazy. The Senate Armed Service Committee and the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board both decided after study that the intelligence support to Somalia had been as good as could be expected. It sucked. It was all bullshit. It was the policy that had failed. Bill Clinton recalls the Battle of Mugadishu haunted me. Bastard.

50:01 Only afterwards did Clinton convene his full National Security Council on the subject for the first time. So again, you guys know how this works. They have the deputies group, then they have the actual security group. We went into Somalia and it never, ever rose to the National Security Group for consideration. Never an agenda item. Every other action.

50:31 that we've talked about, is on the agenda multiple times at the National Security Council. Not one time until all of the dead bodies. The Somalia tragedy changed a few things, according to the National Security Council Executive Secretary Nancy Schrodenberg. She would later write, quote, Mogadishu was a strategic setback. No, it was a slaughter.

51:11 Anthony Lake later said, not only in perception of the U.S. abroad, but in our confidence at home. Lake recalls the battle as the worst moment of the first term of Clinton's presidency. All three used the image of the Bay of Pigs. It had nothing to do with the Bay of Pigs. It had literally everything to do with you guys suck. The president's foreign intelligence advisory board had been in decline since the Reagan days.

51:44 The first Bush had left the board alone for a year, then cut it back because Bush didn't need it. He's Mr. CIA himself. He just does everything. He doesn't need a National Security Council. He doesn't need a special group. He doesn't need any of it. Just run it out of the White House. There was a revamped six-member board that he had put under the former Senator John Tower. Bush selected members.

52:16 that had intelligence backgrounds eventually. That would include a former deputy director of the CIA, a director of the NSA, a CIA estimator, an NSC staff official, plus a couple of technocrats. John Deutch would presently head the CIA himself, but the board left as few tracks during the Bush era

52:49 As it could. Don't want to put anything in writing. President Clinton retained most of the institutions, appointing Admiral William Crowe, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead the Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Like Reagan, Clinton had a tendency to use board membership as a political reward. Among his appointments was Zoe Baird. Zoe, I guess.

53:18 after she failed to attain a post as the Attorney General. On the other hand, Clinton's Intelligence Advisory Board actually met and had an agenda. Its post-mortem on the Mogadishu disaster has already been noted. Somalia brought more changes than the board anticipated. The failure forced Les Aspen to resign as Secretary of Defense because he sucked. And Bill Clinton,

53:50 Then put them on the board, the presidential advisory board, the same one that's supposed to approve special operations and covert actions. Yeah, you really suck at it, but here, do it again. Admiral Crowe went to London as U.S. ambassador. So that makes him a Pilgrim Society member. How nice. The Aspen appointment led to one of the most important developments of the decade for U.S. intelligence.

54:23 Aspen had no intention of slowing down. Instead, he wanted to make the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board the center of things to come, which is what you do when you totally screw up something. Do more of it. The Health Intelligence Committee, several Washington think tanks, and the CFR each all had their own separate visions. Former officials like NSA's William Odom advocated reorganization.

54:58 But Les Aspin used the Somalia disaster to press Clinton for either a presidential intelligence advisory board study or a presidential commission made up entirely of its own board members. So let us look at ourselves because I'm not going anywhere. Even on this idea, Aspin had competitors. Four months after Mogadishu, the FBI arrested CIA officer Aldridge Ames.

55:27 whose agency Counterspies had finally identified as responsible for the loss of many agents. Ames' arrest focused enormous attention on the Directorate of Operations and led to demands for a review. Virginia Republican Senator John Warner stood out among those who called for an examination. Warner, one of the few who had looked deeply into the Mogadishu disaster from an oversight standpoint,

55:55 had actually stood in front of Garrett Jones and complimented him on the job the CIA had done at the dish, even though it was totally fucked up. Then he turned around and says, oh, after we caught Ames, we really do need to look into the CIA. Clinton had no stomach for a policy review of U.S. intelligence.

56:20 He rejected the Intelligence Advisory Board study and did nothing until Warner provided a presidential commission in the bill authorizing the CIA budget. So do it or you get no money. The administration opposed this too until Aspen offered a compromise that became law. Les Aspen himself became the chairman of the commission. Holy crap, you can't make this shit up.

56:48 Although Clinton gave Les Aspin a broad role in the review, the president's delays, he waited for months in making the selections, showed a reluctance to do anything. Aspin began to move on his own, finally starting the review process in February of 95. Three months later, the chairman suffered a stroke and then Les Aspin died. President Clinton brought in Harold Brown, the former

57:20 Secretary of Defense in the Carter administration, the review became known as the Aspen Brown Commission. The group wrote its report by the due date and put out 150 pages of closely reasoned text plus appendixes. Readers gleaned the intelligence would be crucial in the new world and there needed to be international cooperation along with coordinated response.

57:48 Aspen Brown advocated a new national agency. Yeah, because that's what we need, more bureaucracy. There would be plenty of text on guidance, space reconnaissance, technical collections, but the twin concerns of the initiators were virtually invisible in the final report. Both covert operations and counterintelligence were submerged in the snippets of text within the report.

58:18 In the final report, Aspen Brown acknowledged that covert action remained the most controversial activity, but recommended that the capability be maintained because you have to have it. The commissioners cited most of the witnesses as well as the 1975 Rockefeller Commission to support covert actions for specific U.S. policy goals. What policy goal did we have in Somalia? What?

58:52 The commission offered the caveats that covert methods should be no more aggressive than needed. Oh, that's nice to know. You can do whatever you want as long as you can say it's needed. The commissioners elsewhere conceded criticism that the Directorate of Operations had become parochial, calling it a click and recommending the CIA rotate them out of there.

59:20 They defended covert action by crediting it with the success of thwarting terrorist incidents. Smash, this is just ridiculous. They created the terrorist, but in the report, it says that they thwart that. You'll never guess what else they say. They also credit the director of operations with smashing drug cartels. You mean the ones that they create?

59:53 Oh, okay. That's ridiculous. The two or three pages on this were dwarfed by the others devoted to organizational issues and the dozens on intelligence collections. So bury all of the nitty gritty stuff that really is the only part that matters in a whole bunch of pages. Sounds like the Warren Report. Among the hearings before the commission was a day.

1:00:26 July 14th, 1995. It could be called the seventh floor day. Four of the five witnesses had either been the director of the CIA or the deputy. They included Dick Helms, Webster, John McMahon, and James Woolsey. The commission would hear from the sitting director of Central Intelligence several weeks later, but the truth is that the son of Clinton's

1:00:57 First DCI had risen and set in a relatively brief interval between his inauguration and the review. So we're going to stop there. You just literally cannot make this stuff up. Right? This just shows how the commissions and it's just rinse, wash, repeat. It's literally crazy. Absolutely crazy.

1:01:33 So you get a bunch of military people killed, a dead guy drug through the streets for absolutely no reason. And we're going to put you in charge of everything. SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. And as usual, thank everyone for attending here on Spaces and on Rumble. I'm listening to all this go down and thinking about what really happened in Mogadishu and Bill Clinton's term. But even so, what I didn't realize.

1:02:10 is that this was UN sanctioned. This was by the UN. The UN brought us into this stuff. So if there's ever a link concerning the UN, NATO, and Operation Gladio and the whole nine yards, here it is, folks. It's in their charter. It was there. It just blows my mind. So it became a UN mission.

1:02:42 The CIA was going to do this anyway. This is exactly like Korea, where they basically, with NATO and everything else, they decide what they're going to do. And then they want the overarching entity in order to run cover for what they're going to do anyway. I would not put this as much on the UN.

1:03:11 Although obviously the UN had a motive to want to feed people in Somalia. Good on them. It's not a military mission. Our mission is not to feed people. Our mission is to go in and kill people and break things. And it is not to feed people. And that's the problem with this type of bullshit.

1:03:43 that the CIA decides that they want to take out this Adid guy because that Adid guy took out their guy and then all hell breaks loose. That's what the bottom line is here. It's just literally crazy. Hello, Warhamster. Howdy. Real quick, I apologize if I get cut off with an incoming phone call.

1:04:19 Press no. I made the mistake of registering a new company in Delaware this morning, and apparently that goes public, and everybody in the world who wants to sell me some kind of payroll services is calling today. So I apologize for that. Fun, fun, fun show, Colonel. I did some digging on your friend Robert Gates, and we could do an entire show on him.

1:04:45 I mean, we really should. I mean, it's out of order and anything like that, but that could definitely be on the agenda. Well, give us the Reader's Digest version. Yeah, that's what I was going to do. First of all, you know, I found it very interesting. He was obviously Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, and was on all these top national scouting little committees, stuff like that. And that's just another form of grooming. You know, it's a way of making really good contacts early on. They kind of get their pick of the litter, which I found very interesting. And, of course, he would also, upon his retirement,

1:05:13 in air quotes, become the president of the National Boy Scouts Association during the time period when they were letting girls in, et cetera. So that's on his resume as well. But interesting part about his background, he talked about how the CIA wasn't sharing intelligence with the military, right? Yeah, and that's, I don't know how long that's been the case, but just- For a very long time. They share what they want and they craft what they share.

1:05:42 Yeah, and doesn't the military have their own intelligence? We do. We do. All right, so let me just read an interesting paragraph from his wiki page and just jump in any time. While he's at Indiana University in grad school, Gates is recruited by the CIA and joins in 1966. In 1967, he's commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force while attending officer training school under CIA sponsorship.

1:06:11 Now we've got CIA putting their own officers through the military training school. What could possibly go wrong? We know that happens a lot. 67 to 69, he's assigned to Strategic Air Command as an intelligence officer, which included a year at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. It's Missouri again. Where he delivered intelligence briefings to intercontinental ballistic missile crews. Upon fulfilling his military obligation, he rejoined the CIA as an intelligence analyst.

1:06:45 Blah, blah, blah. I mean, it's just right out there in the open. You know, who, you know, is it the tail, you know, is the tail wagging the dog or the other way around? Hmm. That's very interesting. I found another little fun blurb that I wanted to share. And so he, of course, sits on a ton of corporate boards. He sat on a lot of academic boards, most specifically William & Mary and Texas A&M. Then he sits on the board members of Fidelity.

1:07:17 a company called NACO Industries, Brinker International, Parker Drilling Company, et cetera, et cetera. And here's a really interesting one. He's on the board of a company called Vote Here, a technology company which sought to provide cryptography and computer software security for the electronic election industry. Oh, my God. Wait till I tell Ken Cohn that. Well, I also see that he's on SAIC, and SAIC is the CIA front.

1:07:48 SAIC was mostly based out of San Diego. One of their three main headquarters was the floor below me when I worked for UBS down in La Jolla. I knew dozens of these SAIC people. And when they went public, a bunch of them became my clients. I know them very well. Yeah, I know a whole bunch of SAIC people in Washington, D.C. when I was stationed there. A lot of them. And a lot of them are intelligence.

1:08:15 that leave the military and go there. And there's a lot of former, quote-unquote former, other intelligent people at SAIC. When they went public, which I want to say would have been around 2007 or 8, those SAIC employees that are mid-level, lower management, not upper management, the ones I knew, they made like $3 to $10 million on that public IPO. They'd only been there like less than 10 years.

1:08:43 So that's the whole public-private thing. These ex-military intel people, they are sitting on all the boards. They are cashing in like you would not believe. This is fascism. This is exactly what that is. This is the crony capitalism that we're going to talk about more tomorrow. But it is disgusting to actually see it. One more thing on the voting. You can share this with CanCon for me. Vote Here was working with Sequoia Voting Systems from 2004 on.

1:09:12 And Sequoia is the company that went through British intelligence, too. We ought to do a show at CanCon on this one. Yeah, that's crazy. I put in the Rumble chat earlier that our show tomorrow, I'm good for the show tomorrow as long as you are. Okay, yeah. This is the show I think I've been training for my entire life. All right. I am really excited about tomorrow's show, and it's going to take multiple weeks to get through.

1:09:43 The Fabian Socialists. But the lead up into it, the prelude to that is tomorrow. And I am very much looking forward to it. So everybody, please don't miss this. The Colonel has been posting a lot of stuff about the Fabian Socialists lately. He's been doing a very good job. And so you've definitely done your homework ahead of this one. This stuff, these next few weeks are going to blow your minds to understand what's really wrong with the world. And we're going to call some people out. It is. It's an amazing.

1:10:13 um uh what's the word epiphany once you figure it out yeah um but the the show um is at noon eastern time for everybody we've been sort of building up to this moment for quite some time it'll tie back into everything we've done you know the secret societies and everything you've done with gladio it'll all tie together we will tie it up in a neat bow but i find that this is just really exciting stuff to me um

1:10:42 So I am looking forward to that. That's how geeky we are. I'll accept that. Yeah, me too. But anyway, so, and just so that you guys know, this same Robert Gates, he, like, it's hard to put,

1:11:15 everything into perspective of the stuff that he's touched. He's a CFR member. He's literally touched a whole ton of things. It's crazy. Of course, he's in Obama's administration. But, yeah. The guy was Obama's designated survivor. He was sick.

1:11:44 in the line of succession to be president of the United States. Unbelievable. Yeah. But no, you talk about the CIA not sharing stuff with the military. Well, he was both. You know, he was comrades. You know, who's his loyalty to? The CIA first or the military first? You can't serve two masters, can you? Well, there's no such thing as former CIA. And we just read in the book that the CIA is always loyal to the CIA, even when they're supporting a military mission.

1:12:16 If you're in the military, is that someone you want to have your back? But people don't understand the CIA doesn't work for the United States. No one in the military understands that. Well, they do when it suits their purposes. No, no, I'm just saying anybody in the military. Yeah, I get that. I mean, how can you even trust the intel ever? Well, if you ever do any research on the CIA, you wouldn't, but they don't.

1:12:47 Because they're brainwashed into believing that the CIA works for the government and we're all in on this together and that we're all supporting one person, the commander in chief. And it's supposed to be all collectively moving towards one objective. The problem is the CIA never has the same objective.

1:13:10 A hundred percent agreed. I mean, I can't imagine being the commander in chief and you got to listen to the National Security Council. I mean, you know, we got to hope that Trump gets, you know, intelligence from other sources. And by now, I think he does. And we always knew that he had great private intelligence. But for the love of God, you know, who's whispering in his ear? Between the CIA and idiots like Sebastian Gorka, you know, and people wonder, you know, people criticize decisions made like in Iran. Well, I don't know what intel he got and what he didn't. Maybe he has a greater grand strategic plan. I guess we'll find out.

1:13:40 You got to take it with a grain of salt. He is not getting good information by the people who are supposed to have the best information in the world. And you can't trust it, period. You can't trust anything from the CIA, that's for sure. But he is the best example that we've found of where they sheep dip CIA into the U.S. military. Yeah, I thought he really stood out when I was going when I started looking at his background. Again, we really owe it to ourselves to do that show at some point because there's so much he's been.

1:14:12 He's another one of those Forrest Gumps. He's been a lot of interesting places. And what really pisses me off is he graduated from Indiana University. And you know what's really interesting about the time frame that he's there? Is Indiana University was intricately involved in the CIA's machinations with the Phoenix program along with the University of Michigan.

1:14:41 During that time, because this is a time when Dan Mederone was training his police officers at IU where they were supporting the Office of Public Safety for USAID. And he's right in the middle of that, too. I'll tell you a bit more about the Indiana connection offline, simply because my godfather was there at the exact same time and he was an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. There's some stuff I can't really repeat, so I'll do that. We'll talk about that offline. OK. Yep.

1:15:11 Miss Lou, go ahead, and then we'll go to SR. Colonel, I'll be quick. There's just one line from the movie Havana that I know you'll appreciate because it says so much. Marion Chigwell, who plays the Gourmet Magazine fake editor who's in Havana the night of the revolutionary takeover, right? He comes the next day after Batista's left and Fidel's coming in to take his rightful place in history.

1:15:42 He says to Robert Redford, who plays the gambler, he says, Redford says to him, so how'd it go? And he said, well, we don't lose because it's never over. And so Redford says to him, well, you don't win either. That's kind of the motto, isn't it? That's perfect.

1:16:13 He says, well, we never lose. He's on his way to Indochina, he tells Redford. He says, well, I'm on my way to do the gourmet cuisine of Indochina. Now, this is 1959, right? So the CIA is already headed for Indochina. And we were already there. We were already there. We were already there. But he said, we never lose because it's never over. Perfect.

1:16:41 Go ahead, SR. Thank you, Colonel. I just wanted to add my personal view concerning Warhamster and his statement in the military and what goes on. And what I'll say is this. In the military, you wind up with all the young proud. Even the officers are young when they first come in. Let's be honest.

1:17:11 So we look at it from the standpoint of, yeah, you got your lane. I got my lane. Sometimes the lanes cross, but we all have an understanding and a belief that we're working towards the same goal. We don't question it in the sense that the civilian world would question their CEOs. We just don't.

1:17:42 And it takes time to get out of that mindset. But that's the best I can offer when you wonder why we don't see it or don't hear it or don't think about it. That's why. Yeah. So Warhamster, I'm sure you've been busy. Did you get a chance? You know, you made the comment the other day. It may have been yesterday or the day before.

1:18:13 about the Scottish Rite, the Masons, and how it interplays with all of the research that we've done. Yeah, yeah. So I just posted, I'll tag you in it. I just posted something before our spaces started. I found the actual connection. And interestingly enough, it ties Nancy Pelosi's.

1:18:44 father to Operation Gladio. It also ties him to the approach of Lucky Luciano and the arrangement with the Mafia and it goes to

1:19:11 than the development of the P2 Lodge in Italy. Yeah, I saw the post. You texted me on it. I read the first few paragraphs before I jumped into the show. Yeah, I'm looking forward to reading that. It sounds like you tied a few things together. Well, I didn't. I found three different articles. I attached one of them. That is the most extensive. It's very, very long. I just pulled out...

1:19:41 pieces of the three different articles, but a lot of the one that I attached because it's the one that did the best, most comprehensive job. I used a few other sources and some books that I had just to look up the people because I recognized the name, but I couldn't call it off.

1:20:03 the top of my head. So I had to look at a few indexes as well and put the references in there. But yeah, it's crazy. I'm looking forward to the read. I've never personally made the Pelosi connection, but it's not a shocker at all because we know about the mafia. I mean, going back to, like I said, Operation Underworld, once the mafia gets their hooks in something, they never let go. And there's a reason I call my entire series of the stuff that I do with you and a couple other people, The Shadow State, because it's exactly what they built. They built a shadow state underneath.

1:20:33 everything they do publicly. So it comes as no shock, but it's a great bit of writing. I'm looking forward to it. Well, this one guy, you're going to love this part too. Gigliotti, who is kind of the main character in here, and I ran across him because he's in Daniel Ganser's book, and that's the one that kind of caught my attention because he was a big...

1:20:58 part of the beginning of Operation Gladio. He spends a lot of time in Italy. I did not know until I was reading this guy's article that he actually spent a lot of time in San Diego. Oh, that's interesting. I'll have to dig deeper on that. Yeah. And now we're talking again. SAIC, Gigliotti. Okay. The very first mention, according to the author, of there even being a Scottish Rite

1:21:29 Masonic Lodge in San Diego is after this guy arrives. Well, I guess we're going to have to do the Masons deeper than I thought. But it's true. It's a shadow state. Yeah, again, how many times do I have to say it? What's the best place to hide a secret society? Inside a secret society. And they use the Masons.

1:21:58 The Masonic Lodge is intelligence hubs going back centuries, and more probably since the 1700s and stuff like that. But it makes perfect sense because they start with this entire, we're sworn to secrecy. And they have this hierarchy of who gets to learn which knowledge. It is a perfect structure to do this kind of, excuse my language, do this kind of fuckery that intelligence agencies have always done.

1:22:26 Because I'm going to blast him tomorrow, I'll give Matt Air some credit real quick because he's the one that first pointed out that the Oracle of Delphi and stuff like that, those were secret societies. Those are the first intelligence agencies. Yeah. And I'll give Matt credit for that because I am going to put him on blast tomorrow. But I like the guy. I consider him a friend. And he does great work most of the time. So it's just patterns and patterns. Patterns and patterns.

1:22:56 Yeah. So speaking of which, this is just hysterical. Holy crap. So you guys may recall a few weekends ago over my birthday weekend, we did on that car ride. And I was telling you, I was speaking with somebody whose father had been part of the mafia and in Chicago. And that

1:23:26 He just kind of casually mentioned that when he moved down to Central Florida, that there was an agreement with Santo Trafficani that he was to come to our area and set up a Knights of Columbus for four years.

1:23:52 You guys would not at all be surprised that this is the first line on the Wikipedia. I've been meaning to do this, but it's appropriate in this particular session since we're talking about all this. Knights of Columbus is a global Catholic fraternity since we're talking about the P2 Lodge and the Catholic Church and the Mafia and how basically they all spin around.

1:24:24 Operation Gladio, I'm not at all surprised to see that, that the mafia from, and they definitely are from Italy, would be associated with the Knights of Columbus. Holy shit. This is so good. Well, yeah, and we just touched on Knights of Malta when we were going through the city of London, but that's a really deep rabbit hole as well.

1:24:53 Sorry, if you're Catholic out there, there's a lot of, once again, fuckery that have been done with some of these fraternal societies. We could spend all summer long on this stuff. The great news is I've got more time to research now going forward. So I am going to be a much more effective partner in crime for you. We're in trouble. We're in trouble. Okay.

1:25:24 Fun, fun, fun show. All right. Thanks for being here, everybody. We're going to close up shop, and we will be back tomorrow at noon and then again at 4 o'clock. You guys have a nice evening. See you tomorrow. Oh, why are you so mad? Sorry, I didn't see your hand. Go ahead. I just actually wanted to ask you a question.

1:25:51 Applying or suggesting that the Knights of Columbus is part of this whole Gladio situation? I'm saying that there's some connection to the mafia. Obviously, it's a Catholic-associated thing, which I didn't know either. Because why else would a mafia...

1:26:18 And I mean, Santo Trafficani was not just any mafia boss. He was probably one of the top three in the United States. Tell someone as part of their mafia duty to go set up a Knights of Columbus in an area that didn't have one.

1:26:36 Okay, because I'm doing some research on the Knights of Columbus, and I'm finding a lot of connections between the Italian mafia as well as the CIA when it comes to the Knights of Columbus, and I'm just wondering. That would make perfect sense. Can I address your question? Sure. So it's what we're saying about a secret society within a secret society. You get a benign, benevolent organization that's set up for all the right reasons like the Knights of Columbus.

1:27:05 They've got the whole infrastructure. They've got lodges everywhere like that. And then you infiltrate and you use them for your purposes. That's what the bad guys do. So the organization. Yeah, because there's there's degrees in the Knights of Columbus, too. I think the highest you could go is a fourth degree. Yeah. Knights of Columbus. And I'm just I'm curious about that because it's kind of set up like the Freemasons where the knowledge is not given to everybody. And it's it's focused in a certain level.

1:27:35 that gets that knowledge. So I'm thinking the higher up you go in these organizations, the more likely you're involved in these, I'll say it, nefarious things. 100%. You got to think of it like a corporation. Most of the people that work for any of these major corporations are probably good, hardworking people that are working there just to provide for their family. You get promoted up to a mid-level management, you know a little bit about what goes on. But once you get to the C-suite,

1:28:03 You're doing stuff that you could never tell your shareholders. And there's a board of directors above them. So it's all like a corporate structure. It's a pyramid, like everything else. And that's how they control. Everything's compartmentalized and on a need-to-know basis. Okay. All right. So I'm doing my research on that, and it's just like, man, you would never think that something that is put – well, no, now that I've listened to the Colonel for a while.

1:28:31 When things are put in for like all the right reasons, so to speak, and then to find out that they're in there to do, they cover it up with the good and they do the bad. Yeah, but again, you can't just, just because someone's a member of these organizations, the vast majority of the rank and file are pretty darn good, normal people. And it's, they don't know what's being done in their name. And that's why they're secret.

1:28:58 Oh, I agree with that. My father is actually a fourth degree Knights of Columbus. I'm not too sure what he knows. But when I sat there and talked to him a couple of days ago and I told him, hey, you know, we need to dismantle the CIA. He asked me directly. He's like, so you think the CIA is completely bad? And yes, yes, I do. And he got really quiet with me. And I'm.

1:29:23 There's a lot of things in my past that I've been questioning as far as some of the things that he has said. So I'm not going to go any further with that. He was also in Strategic Air Command and a lot of connections to other things. So I'm just in there going, whew, is this a little close to home for me? Well, I'd like to hear the story more offline. But Colonel, what do you think about that statement? Is everything the CIA does bad or there are good actors inside of it?

1:29:53 Well, those are two different stories or those are two different questions. Everything that they do is bad. Does that mean every single person that's inside of that organization is knowingly contributing to the bad? That does not mean the same thing. You can be an analyst. You can write every single thing.

1:30:23 as you know it, based on actual intelligence, your boss then takes your analysis and throws it in the trash can because it doesn't suit the narrative that they're wanting for the national intelligence assessment. So they're definitely not the same thing. Yeah, and that goes back to the initial split at the formation of the CIA, the National Security Act.

1:30:52 They were initially only supposed to gather intelligence, which we would call that a benign activity. We need intelligence on our – whether they're enemies or friends, we need the intelligence. It's when you switch over to the other half, the covert operations. That was the controversial part because there's a difference between intelligence gathering and intelligence manufacturing. There's a difference between the two.

1:31:19 There was often debates back then that they could gather intelligence and that the special operations or the covert actions needed to be under the auspices of the Pentagon. But you still have the dilemma of the nefarious crafting of intelligence, not gathering of intelligence. And so no matter where you put the tip of the spear,

1:31:46 If you're relying on the CIA as it was constructed with the bankers and lawyers, you're always going to get crafted intelligence. You're never going to get real intelligence. And why anybody would have bankers and lawyers in an intelligence organization and think that anything ever good is going to come out of it is beyond me.

1:32:14 Yeah, an interesting analogy comes to mind. You talk about the tip of the spear. Well, intelligence gathering is an ear, not a spear. You should be listening, knowing what's going on out there. A spear is covert. And that's where we start talking about fifth generation warfare. We haven't declared war in who knows how many decades, but we've been at war nonstop, whether it be covert or otherwise. And maybe we need to redefine what war is. I haven't talked about that a bit lately, but that's a different topic for another day.

1:32:43 And I know you got to go. Yeah. Why are you so mad? Go ahead. Then I got to run. Well, I'll go ahead and let you run. I wanted to talk more about I'm kind of questioning my uncle's background, too, as far as his connection. Yeah, let's take that one. Yeah, I will. Have a good evening. It was a great episode. Thank you. Thank you. OK, guys, take care.

Entities here

CIA37 Somalia25 Robert Gates25 Mohamed Farah Aidid21 Mogadishu19 United States18 Bill Clinton13 G. Michael Shackley13 Garrett Jones13 United Nations10 George H.W. Bush10 Church Committee9 Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board9 Jonathan Howe8 William Lloyd Garrison7 Operation Restore Hope7 Operation Gladio7 Battle of Mogadishu7 Les Aspin7 Task Force Ranger6 Aspen-Brown Commission6 National Security Council6 Knights of Columbus6 Langley6 Italy5 Iran-Contra5 Mafia5 Delta Force5 John Spinelli4 Freemasons4 John Warner3 Aldrich Ames3 Pakistan3 Robert Redford3 Directorate of Operations3 San Diego3 1968 United States presidential election3 Pentagon3 Gulf War 19913 Afghanistan3

Claims made here

CIA funded Operation Gladio host_asserted ▶ 0:02

“Good afternoon, everyone. Wow. Afternoon, Colonel. Wow. So I spent like literally my entire day putting together a post that I just made that links Nancy Pelosi's dad to Operation Gladio.…”

George H.W. Bush appointed Robert Gates documented ▶ 2:39

“The same day, Bush called Gates while they were on board Air Force One and asked him if he would accept the CIA nomination. The Iran-Contra investigations were ongoing at the time. And he would defini…”

Alan Fiers member_of CIA documented ▶ 3:12

“was done, but that was, I mean, we know now that was going to be two years. So Alan Fiers, the guy we talked about through this whole series, pleaded guilty in July of 1991. And Gates was fearful that…”

CIA funded Iran-Contra documented ▶ 3:12

William Colby succeeded Robert Gates book_quoted ▶ 3:45

“Gates later said that that was like the lowest point in his life. He had the CIA directorship at his fingertips and it was like just outside of his grasp. So Prado says that Gates realized that it had…”

Robert Gates member_of CIA documented ▶ 4:16

“Gates had spent his entire career around all of these very controversial people. In the summer of 91, where there was confirmation that Soviet Union was going to collapse, which of course the CIA fail…”

Marvin Otz member_of Church Committee documented ▶ 5:20

“of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff at the time. He recalls that there was a predisposition to let Gates sell through. The committee staff and members saw the appearance of a successi…”

Harold Ford member_of CIA documented ▶ 7:00

“Most notably among them was Mel Goodman. He had been a colleague for years. Jennifer Glodsman, a former Soviet analyst, and Harold Ford. Yeah, the same Harold Ford that we know now. Alan Fiers appeare…”

Jennifer Glodsman member_of CIA documented ▶ 7:00

Melvin Goodman member_of CIA documented ▶ 7:00

David Boren member_of Church Committee documented ▶ 8:06

“wrestled with the dilemma. President Bush intervened, invoking party discipline to ensure his nominee got backed. Oates believes Gates appealed to the White House to do this. Committee Chairman David …”

Robert Gates headed CIA documented ▶ 9:07

“For all the drama that went on, the sequel did not live up to the fears. Director Gates indicated that there were flexibility with the CIA. He showed a healthy appreciation for the need to change whil…”

Tom Fitton member_of Directorate of Operations documented ▶ 11:12

“They didn't flinch when told that the director ought to abolish the Directorate of Operations. Of course, they weren't going to do that. And it wasn't going to be in the final report that they said th…”

CIA founded National Center to Target Human Intelligence Assets documented ▶ 11:43

“who thought nothing of rejecting a FOIA request for mongoose documents, whose substance was already in the church committee report, was forced to be a little bit more, less forceful in his opinions in…”

George H.W. Bush ordered_assassination_of Mohamed Siad Barre host_asserted ▶ 18:26

“Not because the CIA wasn't involved, because they were. They were intimately involved in creating it as a failed state. The forces that had arrayed in Somalia overthrew Mohamed Siari, who had been the…”

G. Michael Shackley member_of CIA documented ▶ 20:37

“One reason the TV crews were set up on the beach was that the CIA cleared the way. Sounds like a setup. Michael Shacklin, former deputy director of the station in Mogadishu, returned to help make this…”

G. Michael Shackley recruited Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 21:11

“Shanklin arrived at the airfield north of the city with the CIA team to reactivate his old network. Among his assets had been a top aide to Mohammad Farhad Hadin, one of the most powerful warlords who…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 21:42

“Whether you like it or not, just like Qaddafi, when they leave, the entire thing falls apart. That man had been on the payroll of Shacklin. The CIA had apprised Hadin of the impending U.S. interventio…”

Larry Friedman member_of CIA documented ▶ 23:19

“Tumarka in January was carried off in exactly the same way. The first American death of the Somali operation was in fact a CIA assignee, Sergeant Larry Friedman of Delta Force, detached to work with t…”

Larry Friedman member_of Delta Force documented ▶ 23:19

Jonathan Howe succeeded Robert Gates documented ▶ 26:25

“You know, while our troops are still on the ground, we're no longer just feeding people. We're now going to actually get into action. To accomplish this, the U.N. appointed a special representative, a…”

William Pickney member_of Directorate of Operations documented ▶ 29:34

“Langley's cadre for the DISH was interesting. The DO clearly chose security specialists over covert operators. African Division Chief William Pickney, a veteran of the 1980s ISI Afghan war, reached ou…”

William Pickney member_of CIA documented ▶ 29:34

John Spinelli member_of Directorate of Operations documented ▶ 29:34

Garrett Jones member_of CIA documented ▶ 30:41

“Jones was the new station chief. His deputy, John Spinelli, his codename was Leopard. He had also been a police officer. Where? In New York City. That's crazy. Oh, and his previous assignment? Rome, o…”

John Spinelli member_of CIA documented ▶ 30:41

Jonathan Howe ordered_assassination_of Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 33:50

“Weapon caches, because there's always going to be some of them. The UN captured 30 technicals, but no warlord. And a Moroccan battalion was ambushed next. Howe then issued a warrant for Adid's arrest.…”

William Lloyd Garrison member_of Task Force Ranger documented ▶ 35:56

“In late August, Task Force Ranger, a contingent of 400 special ops troops with 16 helicopters, a Delta Force element plus a company of Rangers deployed to the dish. Mortars shelled the airport as they…”

William Lloyd Garrison member_of Delta Force documented ▶ 35:56

Garrett Jones member_of Task Force Ranger documented ▶ 36:26

“telling Garrison that the CIA worked for him. Case officer Buffalo came with Task Force Rangers as an intelligence support team. Yeah, because we want CIA being our intelligence. Garrison sent one of …”

CIA covered_up Battle of Mogadishu host_asserted ▶ 37:25

“requires that possibilities be reviewed at the outset, not in the heat of the moment. So the CIA will not give the military the appropriate intelligence, nor do they even anticipate after attacks that…”

CIA recruited G. Michael Shackley documented ▶ 38:37

“We still haven't learned that lesson, by the way. About the time Task Force Ranger reached the dish, the CIA lost its prize agent. Playing Russian roulette with aides, the wrong chamber in his revolve…”

G. Michael Shackley member_of CIA documented ▶ 39:01

“but deteriorating security now forced Condor to use a protective detail. 15 men, including four Navy SEALs, restricting its mobility. The safe house Shacklin used in northern Mogadishu sprouted so man…”

William Lloyd Garrison carried_out_attack Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 39:33

“had to get out. Choppers picked up his team one night at a nearby soccer field. See ya, you can get out. Leave all of the other people as sitting ducks. General Garrison began new raids, demonstrating…”

Task Force Ranger carried_out_attack Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 40:05

“from the helicopters and captured the occupants. It just so happened to be UN relief workers. Then came an operation targeting the compound used by the Russians during the days of Syed Bari. The Range…”

William Lloyd Garrison carried_out_attack Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 40:39

“To basically a pre-electronic age, despite all of the technology, they're blind. Because they're dealing with people who don't communicate that way. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure that out…”

John Spinelli member_of CIA documented ▶ 42:07

“Italian peacekeepers responsible for that sector began handing over to Nigerians, and the Somalis attacked them. Sapele's jeeps were caught in the fighting. Spinelli was shot in the neck, a CIA casual…”

G. Michael Shackley recruited Osman Atto documented ▶ 43:13

“Condor asked Jones what had happened to it, and the station chief found it in a storeroom. Shacklin passed the stick to an agent who gave it to an aide, Osman Otto, who was Adid's financier. The CIA u…”

Delta Force carried_out_attack Osman Atto documented ▶ 43:41

“The Delta Force made an instant drop-in, capturing Otto. Admiral Howe radiated optimism. Nothing's going their way. You're taking casualties, but hey, let's be optimistic. Others had a sense of forebo…”

Garrett Jones member_of CIA documented ▶ 44:16

“than the old one. Garrett Jones saw a report from headquarters called Looming Foreign Policy Disaster. Langley's pressured the station to advise U.S. operations and intentions, which left Jones angry …”

Garrett Jones exposed Jonathan Howe documented ▶ 44:43

“an eyes-only message complaining that the Delta Force had been misused, that this myopic focus on Hadid would not solve all of Somali's problems, and that Jonathan Howe had no idea what he was doing. …”

Bill Pickney ordered_assassination_of Garrett Jones documented ▶ 44:43

Cheetah member_of CIA documented ▶ 45:20

“and they were told to shut up. Cheetah, one of Jones' case officers, was in charge of the newest network, based on a splinter group from Adid's forces. Early on October 3rd, Cheetah reported a gatheri…”

William Lloyd Garrison carried_out_attack Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 45:52

“and putting up the hood. The agent complied. Garrison ordered a raid. Jones, standing next to him, cabled this to Langley, but the initial reports were all good. In the space of minutes, success turne…”

CIA trained Mujahideen host_asserted ▶ 46:18

“as were vehicles for the quick reaction forces sent in on the ground. Today, it's believed that the early action of, you'll guess it, it was Al-Qaeda terrorists that was responsible for all of this. T…”

Al Qaeda carried_out_attack Task Force Ranger host_asserted ▶ 46:18

Robert Oakley succeeded Jonathan Howe documented ▶ 47:46

“Another American, one of the chopper pilots, was captured and his body dragged through the streets. It was recovered afterwards only by making a deal with the elusive Hadid. The U.S. would refrain fro…”

United Nations funded Mohamed Farah Aidid documented ▶ 48:16

“who had gotten along with Adid, and the UN command made a truce with the warlords. When the UN pulled out the dish in 1995, their information unit left behind several boxes of US intelligence document…”

John Spinelli removed_from_power CIA documented ▶ 48:45

“John Spinelli resigned in March of 1998 after failing to get the CIA to change its disability rules to match those of other federal agencies. He later went to court to force that change. At last repor…”

Bill Clinton appointed William J. Crowe documented ▶ 52:49

“As it could. Don't want to put anything in writing. President Clinton retained most of the institutions, appointing Admiral William Crowe, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to lead the P…”

Bill Clinton appointed Zoe Baird documented ▶ 52:49

John Warner exposed CIA documented ▶ 55:27

“whose agency Counterspies had finally identified as responsible for the loss of many agents. Ames' arrest focused enormous attention on the Directorate of Operations and led to demands for a review. V…”

Bill Clinton appointed Les Aspin documented ▶ 56:20

“He rejected the Intelligence Advisory Board study and did nothing until Warner provided a presidential commission in the bill authorizing the CIA budget. So do it or you get no money. The administrati…”

Bill Clinton appointed Harold Brown documented ▶ 57:20

“Secretary of Defense in the Carter administration, the review became known as the Aspen Brown Commission. The group wrote its report by the due date and put out 150 pages of closely reasoned text plus…”

Aspen-Brown Commission exposed CIA documented ▶ 58:52

“The commission offered the caveats that covert methods should be no more aggressive than needed. Oh, that's nice to know. You can do whatever you want as long as you can say it's needed. The commissio…”

United Nations funded Battle of Mogadishu host_asserted ▶ 1:02:10

“is that this was UN sanctioned. This was by the UN. The UN brought us into this stuff. So if there's ever a link concerning the UN, NATO, and Operation Gladio and the whole nine yards, here it is, fol…”

Robert Gates member_of National Boy Scouts Association documented ▶ 1:05:13

“in air quotes, become the president of the National Boy Scouts Association during the time period when they were letting girls in, et cetera. So that's on his resume as well. But interesting part abou…”

Robert Gates recruited CIA documented ▶ 1:05:42

“Yeah, and doesn't the military have their own intelligence? We do. We do. All right, so let me just read an interesting paragraph from his wiki page and just jump in any time. While he's at Indiana Un…”

Robert Gates member_of Strategic Air Command documented ▶ 1:06:11

“Now we've got CIA putting their own officers through the military training school. What could possibly go wrong? We know that happens a lot. 67 to 69, he's assigned to Strategic Air Command as an inte…”

Robert Gates member_of SAIC host_asserted ▶ 1:07:17

“a company called NACO Industries, Brinker International, Parker Drilling Company, et cetera, et cetera. And here's a really interesting one. He's on the board of a company called Vote Here, a technolo…”

SAIC front_for CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:07:17

VoteHere funded Sequoia Voting Systems host_asserted ▶ 1:08:43

“So that's the whole public-private thing. These ex-military intel people, they are sitting on all the boards. They are cashing in like you would not believe. This is fascism. This is exactly what that…”

Robert Gates appointed Barack Obama host_asserted ▶ 1:11:15

“everything into perspective of the stuff that he's touched. He's a CFR member. He's literally touched a whole ton of things. It's crazy. Of course, he's in Obama's administration. But, yeah. The guy w…”

Robert Gates member_of CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:11:44

“in the line of succession to be president of the United States. Unbelievable. Yeah. But no, you talk about the CIA not sharing stuff with the military. Well, he was both. You know, he was comrades. Yo…”

Indiana University funded Phoenix Program host_asserted ▶ 1:14:12

“He's another one of those Forrest Gumps. He's been a lot of interesting places. And what really pisses me off is he graduated from Indiana University. And you know what's really interesting about the …”

Michigan State University funded Phoenix Program host_asserted ▶ 1:14:12

Dan Mitrione trained Office of Policy Coordination host_asserted ▶ 1:14:41

“During that time, because this is a time when Dan Mederone was training his police officers at IU where they were supporting the Office of Public Safety for USAID. And he's right in the middle of that…”

Office of Policy Coordination member_of USAID host_asserted ▶ 1:14:41

CIA carried_out_attack South Vietnam host_asserted ▶ 1:16:13

“He says, well, we never lose. He's on his way to Indochina, he tells Redford. He says, well, I'm on my way to do the gourmet cuisine of Indochina. Now, this is 1959, right? So the CIA is already heade…”

Nancy Pelosi member_of P2 Masonic Lodge guest_asserted ▶ 1:18:44

“father to Operation Gladio. It also ties him to the approach of Lucky Luciano and the arrangement with the Mafia and it goes to…”

Nancy Pelosi member_of Mafia guest_asserted ▶ 1:18:44

“father to Operation Gladio. It also ties him to the approach of Lucky Luciano and the arrangement with the Mafia and it goes to…”

Nancy Pelosi member_of Operation Gladio guest_asserted ▶ 1:18:44

“father to Operation Gladio. It also ties him to the approach of Lucky Luciano and the arrangement with the Mafia and it goes to…”

Gigliotti member_of Scottish Rite book_quoted ▶ 1:20:58

“part of the beginning of Operation Gladio. He spends a lot of time in Italy. I did not know until I was reading this guy's article that he actually spent a lot of time in San Diego. Oh, that's interes…”

Gigliotti member_of Operation Gladio book_quoted ▶ 1:20:58

Santo Trafficante Jr. funded Knights of Columbus guest_asserted ▶ 1:23:26

“He just kind of casually mentioned that when he moved down to Central Florida, that there was an agreement with Santo Trafficani that he was to come to our area and set up a Knights of Columbus for fo…”

Mafia member_of Knights of Columbus host_asserted ▶ 1:24:24

“Operation Gladio, I'm not at all surprised to see that, that the mafia from, and they definitely are from Italy, would be associated with the Knights of Columbus. Holy shit. This is so good. Well, yea…”

CIA member_of Knights of Columbus caller_asserted ▶ 1:26:36

“Okay, because I'm doing some research on the Knights of Columbus, and I'm finding a lot of connections between the Italian mafia as well as the CIA when it comes to the Knights of Columbus, and I'm ju…”

CIA founded National Security Act of 1947 host_asserted ▶ 1:30:23

“as you know it, based on actual intelligence, your boss then takes your analysis and throws it in the trash can because it doesn't suit the narrative that they're wanting for the national intelligence…”