IN CASE YOU HAVEN’T HEARD: The 20th anniversary of 9/11 is upon us. For the past month or so, we have been telling you about the myriad of documentaries streaming here and there. But that didn’t begin to touch all the traditional network news coverage. To get a glimpse of the near wall-to-wall coverage, check out this list from AdWeek.. Some of these programs may have aired by the time you read this – but fear not – there are enough coming to keep you busy until the 25th anniversary. Cipher Brief readers know a lot about 9/11 and its aftermath. If you spot coverage that really gets things right (or wrong) drop us a note.
COURAGEOUS CIA TEAM PROFILED: No, we’re not talking about the “Jawbreaker” team that was the first team into Afghanistan just days after 9/11. In this case, we mean the CIA social media team that allowed a reporter from Politico to visit their Langley offices and explore what they do and why. Unlike Jawbreaker, the social media team has suffered lots of wounds (some of them self-inflicted.) They have been mocked (including from time-to-time by The Dead Drop) for being a tad too “woke.” It took guts to invite in the media to make their case but as CIA spokesperson Sara Lichterman put it, “One of the reasons that we're on social media is if we're not talking about ourselves, other people will still be and then there's a vacuum.” Well said.
A SOCIAL MEDIA SLIP UP: One reader who wasn’t impressed with the Politico story was Senator Marco Rubio. It seems the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was seeing red after reading that the CIA might be entertaining the idea of a TikTok account. The app has faced incredible scrutiny over its ties to China, which poses a somewhat understandable national security risk. Rubio fired off a letter to the CIA making his feelings known, and it didn’t take the agency long to clarify its comments to Politico, saying the CIA has no plans to join the popular social media platform. Guess they’re gonna have to find another way to get their message to those millions of Americans who will do anything for fame and fun.
HAIR RAISING CHANGES IN NAVY UNIFORM REGULATIONS: Periodically, the various uniformed services change their uniform rules – mostly so that old-timers can kvetch about how things aren’t the way they were when they were in the outfit. Latest to shake things up is the U.S. Navy, which put out an administrative message saying that male sailors have more options concerning flat tops, faded, and high and tight hairstyles – and they can now sport sideburns unless they are bald on top (which seems kind of unfair to us.) Opting for the bald look is out for female sailors, however. And under the new regs, male sailors are allowed to wear earrings but only when not in uniform. Apparently, wearing earrings while on duty risks making them look too much like pirates. There is also new rule on name tags – fixing a problem we did not know existed. But the fix makes great sense. Now sailors with accent marks in their names can use the diacritical marks on their name tags. Skipping accent marks can cause trouble. Just ask people who forget them and post on social media items about a Boston Red Sox player whose first name is: Kiké.
MAKING YOUR MARK IN THE MILITARY: Along the same lines, the House Armed Services Committee is looking into mandating a study about whether the uniformed services could recruit more people if it loosened the rules on tattoos. According to Military Times, “rules regarding tattoos or piercings vary from service to service, but most prohibit offensive imagery or tattoos on the face, upper neck and hands.” Hmm. Wonder if they would let bald people ink on sideburn tattoos.
BOARD TO DEATH: The Pentagon has decided to re-start 16 defense advisory boards that were idled in February when officials investigated purging board members who were plugged into them in the waning days of the Trump administration. We know the Pentagon is a big operation – but our question is – do they really need 16 advisory boards? The Cipher Brief was going to recommend creating an advisory board to look into sawing the number of boards down to a more reasonable size. But it turns out they sort of already did. When the freeze was first put into effect, there were more than two score (42) advisory panels in action. It’s unclear if the 26 boards that have not yet been restarted have been forced to walk the plank – or whether they will be re-tooled and raised again.
REVISITING THE BOARD OF VISITORS: Speaking of boards, this week, the Biden White House reportedly sent letters to 18 individuals who had been appointed to the Board of Visitors of the service academies by President Trump and told them essentially “thank you for your service. Visiting hours are over.” The recipients were told to resign by 6PM Wednesday or they would be fired. Among the group were folks like former press secretary (and reserve naval officer) Sean Spicer (who was on the Annapolis board) and former senior adviser Kellyanne Conway (who was on the Air Force Academy board.) Current White House spokesperson Jen Psaki in explaining the sackings said, “The president’s objective is what any president’s objective is, which was to ensure that you have nominees and people serving on these boards who are qualified to serve on them and who are aligned with your values.” One can debate the wisdom of an administration handing out board seats as political favors during their final weeks in office – but it seems to us that the current White House might have gotten a bit carried away. Politico reports that in addition to Spicer and Conway, “Other former Trump officials appointed to similar boards were also threatened with firing on Wednesday, such as former national security adviser H.R. McMaster”, according to one of the fired board members. Like the 2020 election – results of the ‘resign-or-be-fired’ exercise are slow coming in. We know that Spicer angrily refused to resign as did Conway, who suggested that Biden resign instead.
THE MISSION GAP: It doesn’t seem fair. Diplopundit points out that the State Department has 123 American personnel based in Russia – all at the Embassy in Moscow. But the Russians have more than 400 “diplomats” – spread out between an Embassy in Washington, two consulates, and a Mission to the United Nations.
TRAVEL GUYS: The folks at The Daily Beast ran a piece this week about Eugene Fodor, the founder of the well-known travel guide, who apparently lived a dual life. During WWII, he served in the OSS and after the war, the CIA employed him and his travel guide business as a cover for collecting intelligence. Fodor’s ties to the Agency became public knowledge in the mid-1970s when Congress was looking into the CIA’s wide-ranging activities. Speaking of travel, someone pointed out to us an interesting nugget about the new book, First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11, by Toby Harnden (recently by Phil Mudd.) For a while, this week Amazon listed the book as its “#1 Best Seller in Military Travel Guides.” We suspect Eugene Fodor’s advice re Afghanistan would be: “Don’t go there.”
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
WORKING STIFFS: Everyone seems to be doing retrospectives on what went right (and mostly wrong) with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. A website in India “OpIndia” rediscovered a story saying that a favorite CIA tactic to curry favor with Afghan warlords was to hand out Viagra. “If you give an asset $1000, he’ll go out and buy the shiniest junk he can find, and it will be apparent that he has suddenly come into a lot of money,” one CIA veteran told The Washington Post in 2008. “Even if he doesn’t get killed, he becomes ineffective as an informant because everyone knows where he got it.” Apparently, handing out little blue pills did not result in blowing the assets cover.
OUR HEARTS GO OUT TO THEM: Media accounts say that the Taliban feel “angry and betrayed” that the U.S. troops leaving Kabul rendered useless millions of dollars worth of airplanes, helicopters and weapons systems on their way out. How dare they! The U.S. Central Command says the gear was “demilitarized” but that perhaps puts too much of a smiley face on it.
AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON: The folks at Task & Purpose report that U.S. troops departing Afghanistan left behind a few messages. A group of armed Marines posed in front of a wall on which the phrase “F#$% ISIS AFG 2021” was painted. Other photos were more inclusive and shared the same sentiment about the Taliban. We noted that Task & Purpose blotted out the faces of the Marines…but unlike us, they elect not to obscure the last three letters in the “F word.”
WE CAN READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL: But we would prefer an email. So, if you have any tips on stuff that would be useful to share with fellow Dead Drop readers, shoot us a note at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
