BAD NUMBERS: The Gallup polling people are out with their periodic rating of the public’s perception of the honesty and ethics of major occupations. The good news is that the majority of the public (61%) think that military officers have high ethical standards. The bad news is that the number is down ten points since it was last measured in 2017, and is now at an all-time low. Nurses top the list for the 20th straight year – perhaps not surprising since so many Americans have gotten to meet nurses over the past couple years. The honesty of Members of Congress is viewed “Very high or high” by only 9 percent of the public - but they beat out car salespeople by one percent.
BAD JUDGMENT: A judge in Kentucky seems to think that the U.S. military is either an alternative to prison – or a home for wayward young men. Judge Thomas Wingate handed down a year-long sentence to Brandon Scott Price for second-degree sexual assault – but said the price of Price going free would be signing up for the military in the next 30 days. According to Task & Purpose, Price was a guard in the local jail – and was convicted of assaulting a female prisoner. Doesn’t exactly sound like an ideal recruit, your honor.
BAD PRINCE? Apparently, across the pond, being in the military won’t get you out of trouble if you’re accused of sexual misconduct. At least – that is what Prince Andrew is finding out. As a result of allegations that he took advantage of underaged girls supplied by Jeffrey Epstein, the Crown (Andrew’s mom) has stripped him of a few military titles. Which ones? Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, Honorary air commodore of RAF Lossiemouth, Colonel-in-chief of the Royal Irish Regiment, Colonel-in-chief of the Small Arms School Corps, Colonel-in-chief of The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth's Own), Colonel-in-chief of the Yorkshire Regiment, Commodore-in-Chief of the Fleet Air Arm, Royal Colonel of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, and Royal Colonel of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. And that doesn’t count at least four or five titles he lost in Canada and New Zealand. Andrew also will no longer be referred to as “His Royal Highness.” On the bright side, he is probably saving a lot on business cards and can still call himself a Royal Navy vice admiral. Still, those now-vacant titles sound like pretty sweet gigs. We wonder if you have to be British to hold them.
BAD HISTORY: Former CIA officer and former federal prisoner John Kiriakou appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show last week to kvetch about the FBI and Justice Department. He said the public shouldn’t support the FBI because "It would be the same FBI agents that would be arresting and prosecuting participants in the Boston Tea Party, because that was seditious, supposedly." Actually, as we recall, the tea partiers were practicing the textbook definition of sedition – “rebelling against the authority of a state or monarch.”
BAD BOGEY: Recently, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked if U.S. intelligence agencies were “working with” former President Donald Trump to defend against possible Iranian drone strikes on Mar-a-Lago. The question was inspired by an animated video recently released by Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei which depicts Trump playing golf while being tracked by a robot. In the cartoon video, Trump and fellow golfers’ cellphones receive a message saying “Soleimani’s murderer and the one who gave the order will pay the price.” A drone then targets Trump on the golf course – but the video cuts off before anyone or anything takes a shot. Psaki declined to comment on what the intelligence community might be doing about the matter. The White House later released a statement from National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan saying: “The United States will protect and defend its citizens. This includes those serving the United States now and those who formerly served.”
FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR EX-CIA OPERATIVES: We hear there is a movie coming out called “The Bricklayer” starring Aaron Eckhart as “an ex-CIA operative who is brought back” to uncover someone slaughtering foreign members of the media and framing the Agency for their deaths. Directing the film will be Renny Harlin, who directed “Die Hard 2” among other action flicks. Harlin reportedly has been working on films in China for the past five years – so we are guessing that whoever is framing the CIA of murder in the film – won’t turn out to be Chinese. The Bricklayer is supposed to start shooting in March – no release date has been announced.
MILITARY MOVIES ON THE HORIZON: For those who like movies about the armed forces (and who doesn’t?) Military Times has a list of five flicks set to debut this year. Some we had heard of – like the long awaited (and delayed) “Top Gun – Maverick” which is due out on May 27th. Others – less so – like the possibly timely “Munich” about British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler in 1938, and one we hope is not predictive “Moonfall” – about the moon falling out of orbit. Sounds like a job for the Space Force.
BOOK REPORT: We understand that a book is in the works called “Code Name Blue Wren” by Jim Popkin. It is being billed as “The True Story of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy” Ana Montes. Montes was a long-time DIA officer who was arrested in 2001, for spying for Cuba. Popkin wrote a lengthy magazine piece about Montes for the Washington Post magazine back in 2013. No word on a publication date yet – Popkin was represented by the Javelin folks. Other books on the horizon include The Fly Girls Revolt: The Story of The Women Who Kicked Open the Door to Fly In Combat, by retired Air Force Colonel Eileen Bjorkman, who is the current executive director of the Air Force Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It is due out in the spring of 2023 from Post Hill Press and is tied to the 30th anniversary of women flying combat missions for the United States. A third book to highlight is “When China Attacks: What America Must do to Win the War of the Century” by retired Marine Colonel Grant Newsham. In it, Newsham will assert that China is already in an undeclared war with the United States, he describes what a "hot war" would look like and explains how the U.S. could win. Regnery is set to publish “When China Attacks” in the spring of 2023. Let’s hope the book comes out before an attack.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SEMI STUPID: The U.S. Navy Exchange system (what the Army calls the “PX”) has some very nice 18-wheeler trucks to deliver goods to their stores. But don’t believe everything you see. If the photo in this tweet can be believed – some of the trucks feature a waving American flag – and a nice looking ship – which turns out to be a Russian Kirov-class cruiser.
NEWS OF THE WEIRD: The U.K.-based Daily Star has unearthed a former U.S. Air Force nuclear weapons technician by the name of Adrian Reiser who says that while guarding special weapons at Whiteman AFB in Missouri between 2003 and 2007, he encountered some odd glowing orbs hovering about the base and zooming around in ways that planes don’t. And then he heard footsteps (which sounded like bare feet) and saw a black mass shaped like a person but blurry and not reflecting any light. Reiser says the shadowy specter was wandering around very close to the nuclear weapons storage area. We figure it was either an extraterrestrial – or the Whiteman C.O. on his way back from the base pool.
BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT: We would welcome sightings of newsworthy stuff that you might send to us at TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
Read more expert-driven national security insights, perspective and analysis in The Cipher Brief
