GET ME RE-WRITE! We’ve been telling you about the plethora of 9/11 anniversary documentaries and publications on the horizon. Given the ongoing collapse in Afghanistan – we imagine there are a lot of video and print editors burning the midnight oil trying to account for recent events – as they try to explain the impact of the 9/11 attacks and their two-decade-long aftermath. Here is another entry in the documentary sweepstakes: HBO has a four-part series made by filmmaker Spike Lee called “New York Epicenters: 9/11-2021½.” Lee appears in the film himself and people who saw advance copies of it said it reportedly gave significant airtime to a widely discredited 9/11 truther who thinks the Twin Towers were brought down by a controlled demolition as part of an inside job. Lee says: “I got questions” about the “official explanations.” But there was so much complaining about giving a conspiracy theorist the stage that Lee is reportedly re-editing the piece. Salon says Lee is back in the editing room and has issued a statement saying, “I respectfully ask you to hold your judgment until you see the FINAL CUT.” We hope Spike does the right thing.
BOOK REPORT: Stand by for a deluge of books about what went wrong (and perhaps occasionally right) in Afghanistan. Steve Coll, who wrote two excellent books on what Axios calls “the U.S. misadventure in Central Asia,” (Ghost Wars and Directorate S) has plans to write another book which will include the fall of Kabul and beyond. And author and former Marine Elliot Ackerman has signed a deal with Penguin Books to write: The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan, tracing the long arc of failure across four succeeding acts from 2001 on, culminating in the dark final act that is now playing out.” No word on publication date for either book. Turns out coming up with a workable plan for Afghanistan was even harder than selecting a new host for “Jeopardy.”
SO THAT’S WHY THE CIA GETS SUCH GOOD PUBLICITY: Journalist and reporter of Edward Snowden fame, Glenn Greenwald was on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show recently declaring that CNN and the liberal media are not controlled by the Democrat National Committee but instead they are controlled by the CIA. Now that’s a scoop.
FIGHTING WORDS: Russian State TV anchors got their knickers in a knot after reports that Ukrainian soldiers were filmed marching and singing "Putin is a d*^#*." According to a tweet from Julia Davis, the outraged hosts declared the soldiers were “worse than the Taliban.” We are not sure if they were talking about the Ukrainian’s marching or singing ability.
IN THE DARK ABOUT OPENNESS: Congress is reportedly working on ways to improve the process of declassifying national security information – exactly what those improvements are, however, we cannot say – because they are contained in a classified annex to the FY22 Intelligence Authorization Act. Senator Ron Wyden included a statement in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the intelligence bill saying: "I am therefore pleased that the classified annex to the bill includes several amendments I offered to advance efforts to accelerate declassification and promote declassification reform." The Federation of American Scientists’ Secrecy News quoted an intelligence community official as saying: "Putting aside the irony of declassification amendments found only in a classified annex, I can confirm that we're tracking it." Well that clears that up.
MOTHER RUSSIA’S MILK: We’ve mentioned many times before that the “news” organization formerly known as “Russia Today” (which now simply goes by “RT”) is funded by the Kremlin. Now we know how much. An article on the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty website says that the watchdog outfit Open Secrets looked up the public records that DOJ has required since 2017 when RT was deemed a “foreign agent.” T&R Productions, the U.S. production company that operates RT in the U.S., received somewhere in the neighborhood of $130 million in the intervening four years, from the Russian government. The bulk of that money came in the past two years ($52.5 million in 2020 and $50.1 million in 2019.). The two years before that, Kremlin support only amounted to $16 million and $17 million respectively.
EYE OPENING RELAXER: We mentioned last week that Politico’s National Security Daily has started a weekly feature highlighting what libations national security figures knock back when they are (presumably) off duty. The latest installment is from Senator Chris Murphy (D, CT) who is on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Senator says he favors drinking Tito’s vodka mixed with Red Bull. He says he downs the upper in his front yard. No word on why Mrs. Murphy won’t let him in the house.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
WE DIDN’T SEE THIS COMING: The government likes to brag about the commercial spinoffs that evolve from official programs. The internet, jeeps, Tang – all kinds of products, programs and capabilities got their start in government. But did you know there is a school for psychics in Utah run by Paul Smith – who says he learned his trade as part of the CIA’s “Stargate” program. According to KUER radio, there are some two-dozen schools around the US offering lessons on remote viewing, but Smith’s $3,000 week-long program is the “Cadillac option” because of his CIA training. What can you do with this training? Among the options is a “Remote Viewing Tournament” where crowdsourced psychics play the stock market. Man, if they had only told us to buy that Apple stock thirty years ago.
MEAN TWEETS: At times, it seems as though nearly everyone is rushing to point fingers at everyone else for screwing up the Afghan exit. But here is one critic we didn’t see coming. The Toronto Sun says that “former porn star Mia Khalifa” has taken to social media to blame the CIA. We can understand why ex-porn stars (and others) would be upset at the possibility of the return of Sharia Law in Afghanistan, but we suggest ‘uncovering’ your politico-military advice from a more credible source, eh?
YOU’VE MADE YOUR BED – NOW DON’T LIE IN IT: Military Times says that U.S. Military Academy Cadet Leila Hurst is “a genius” for developing an elaborate surefire method of lashing up her West Point bed so that it always passes morning inspection. Hurst has posted a Tik Tok video illustrating the use of boot blousers and massive amounts of duct tape. The result is a bed with razor sharp hospital corners and a taut top that you might hurt yourself on if you bounced a quarter off it. Follow her leadership and you will not need to make your bed again for a whole semester. The downside is that you will also not be able to actually sleep under the covers – but you can’t have everything.
REST EASY: You know there are some things you’ve seen that need to be shared with your fellow Dead Drop readers. Don’t sleep on it. Send your tips to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
