Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Idiot

So the story comes out that we had to pull an "asset" (spy) out of Russia because our intelligence agencies thought he or she would be endangered because of a) Donald J. Trump's big mouth and/or b) Donald J. Trump's uncomfortable chumminess, let's call it a full blown crush, with Vladimir Putin

If Trump isn't a treasonous stooge for the Russians, and nothing he's said or done would convince anyone with a functioning brain otherwise, he's simply too fucking stupid to be trusted with our state secrets.

Think about that for just a second...

John le Carre has written a lot of really entertaining books about espionage. From Alec Leamas, in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, through all of the George Smiley books, and on until today, they are the ne plus ultra of spy stories, their verisimilitude founded on le Carre's MI-6 background.

And in not one of them will you find a character as stupid as Donald J. Trump.

Because nobody would believe a fictional character as stupid as Donald J. Trump.

Ya Get What Ya Paid For

So, Vlad "The Elector" Putin helped put Donald J. Trump in the White House.

Can we at least agree on that?

Good.

Now, the big question is, what does Vlad expect in return?

I'm betting it's a little more than semi-coherent tweets praising him.

Der Trump has already backed off on supporting the Ukraine.

And his Secretary of State is a decorated hero of the Russian Republic.

Next up?

Well, what about gutting NATO? Vlad would like that. Give him some breathing room.

And dismantling the European Union would certainly help Trump's Russian "friends".

Also, let's be sure to alienate our British allies.

(I'm betting that if you dug deeply enough into the whole Brexit thing you'd find some Russian money and Russian espionage on the pro-Brexit side.)

Frankly, there's no limit to the mayhem Putin's hand puppet might wreak on the world.

Tired of winning yet?

You're Telling Me The CIA Lied? No!

The problem with replacing all the top CIA guys is that you'd only end up replacing them with other CIA guys...

And they all lie. And when I say "all" I mean most. And when I say "most" I mean all. And when I say "black" I mean "white". And vice versa. They don't call their world a "hall of mirrors" for nothing. It is the nature of the business.

And it has driven at least a few of them completely paranoid crazy.

I'm not sure how the Brits get around this fundamental issue with MI-6....Perhaps they don't.

Anyway, the last President who talked about truly substantive change to the CIA was a fellow named Kennedy. Remember him?

After the Bay of Pigs JFK was so pissed off about being lied to by his "intelligence" agency that he wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind."

And we saw how that worked out in the end...

For the past 67 years we've let this exclusive little club do whatever it thought best to protect US interests, and by that I mean US business interests (often oil related) all over the world. This would include overthrowing governments, assassinations, torture,  and all sorts of other cool stuff. Since it is, nominally, part of our government, when its fuck-ups become too obvious, it will, on occasion, allow its wrists to be slapped by Congress. Then it goes back to doing whatever it wants, under the pretense of "protecting" us.

And should you complain too much about this, and be in a position to possibly do something about it, well, they have ways of dealing with that, too.