UNPUBLISHING NEWS: Normally, suppressing information is not a good thing. But we will waive that opinion when it comes to viewing 120,000 photos and 17,000 videos that have been quietly deleted from the Department of Defense’s publicly available imagery archives. The images were taken during the twenty-year-long war in Afghanistan, but Pentagon officials have elected to remove them because many show Afghan citizens working or associating with U.S. and allied troops – and they don’t want the Taliban sifting through the photos looking for people to punish. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby made the decision and told reporters, “My guidance was: I want any imagery that could be used to identify individuals and/or family members over the last 20 years of war; I wanted it to be unpublished for a temporary period of time, and it is temporary.” There are still tons of images and videos available to the public from Afghanistan – but for now, none that could add to the risk of those left behind.
PUBLISHING NEWS: The messy exit from Afghanistan was bound to be memorialized in more than just photos or daily newspapers. For example, retired Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann and journalist James Gordon Meek have landed a book deal with Simon & Schuster to write, The Last Mission, which will tell the story of a private group of U.S. special operations veterans and civilians who worked under Mann's leadership to help secure the safe passage of their "brother," an experienced Afghan commando and how that rescue inspired a plan to help another 600 Afghan family members who were stuck near the Taliban-encircled Hamid Karzai airport in the final days of the Afghan war. The anticipated publication date is August 2, 2022.
DRAWING THE LINE AT MOVIE INACCURACY: We are quite accustomed to seeing China wield outsized influence in bullying movie makers to not bruise Beijing’s tender sensibilities. So, when we saw a headline about Netflix pulling episodes of a TV series over a South China Sea map shown on screen – we figured this was just another example. But it turns out, according to Politico, that it was the Philippine government that objected to scenes in “Pine Gap,” an Australian spy show that depicted a map that included China’s disputed “nine-dash line” that Beijing uses to assert that most of the South China Sea (an area about the size of half of the continental United States) belongs to them. The Manila government was not amused and ruled that the episodes were “unfit for public exhibition.” Apparently, Vietnam had previously lodged a similar complaint.
PRAISE FOR MOVIE INACCURACY: Not everyone is unhappy with excessive Chinese claims portrayed on the screen. You may remember a recent Dead Drop article about an epic Chinese movie called “The Battle at Lake Changjin” (the Korean War battle is known in the U.S. as “Chosin Reservoir.”) China’s cinematic telling of events predictably portrays their countrymen achieving an unalloyed victory over the U.S. and its allies. Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo appeared with Laura Ingraham last week and praised the flick: “They’re serving up patriotism and heroic masculinity with intent, Laura,” he said. “Remember when we made movies like that? Sergeant York, Saving Private Ryan? We may have forgotten, but the Chinese, they haven’t.” To drive home that point,The New York Times reported this week that China has made it a crime to mock heroes and cited the case of a woman who mocked the “toxic masculinity” of a Chinese war hero who died in 1949. She is now serving a seven-month prison sentence.
FALSE FLAG OPERATION: There is a long piece in New Lines Magazine (an online publication about Middle East issues) which says that the black Islamic State flag which purportedly contains an image of the handwriting and seal of the prophet Muhammed in the middle – is based on a fake. It is a complicated story – but essentially the author, Ahmed El Shamsy, an associate professor at the University of Chicago, says instead of replicating script that came from the prophet’s hand in the seventh century – the image was derived from fake documents created by some Europeans who sold them to museums about 150 years ago.
WHO DO YOU HAVE TO KNOW TO GET CONFIRMED AROUND HERE? We’ve mentioned before the miserable rate at which the U.S. Senate is confirming nominees for ambassadorial appointments. Many political and career nominees are in limbo because Senator Ted Cruz is annoyed at the Biden administration over the Nord Stream II pipeline. Last we saw, 63 ambassadorial nominees were listed as “pending.” Fear not, however, not every nominee is stuck. Last week, the Senate approved the nominations of two retired Senators – and the widows of two others. Jeff Flake of Arizona won approval to become ambassador to Turkey, Tom Udall of New Mexico is heading to New Zealand, while Cindy McCain of Arizona will have Ambassadorial rank while serving as U.S. Rep to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture and Victoria Reggie Kennedy is going to Austria. If those others only had the insight to have served in the Senate or married someone who had – perhaps they would be at their new posts by now.
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE: Damian Lewis, who convincingly lost his British accent to play Marine Gunnery Sergeant Nicholas Brody on “Homeland” gets to keep it in his forthcoming limited TV series called “A Spy Among Friends.” Lewis plays another Nicholas – this time Nicholas Elliott a real-life MI-6 officer who was a close friend of KGB double agent Kim Philby. The series is based on Ben Macintyre’s 2014 book of the same name and will air in the fall of 2022 on Spectrum’s On Demand platform in the US and in the UK on BritBox. The series reportedly started shooting in London this week and will also film in Romania.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
BLOWN COVERAGE: We were pleased to see that Politico Playbook noted a rather exclusive book party this week in Georgetown for Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Walter Pincus on the launch of his new book, Blown to Hell: America’s Deadly Betrayal of the Marshall Islanders. Insiders described the small gathering as a who’s who of the old Georgetown set. Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was there with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, PBS Anchor and Managing Editor Judy Woodruff, George and Elizabeth Stevens, Barbara and John Cochran, Kate Lehrer, Mary Graham, Eden Rafshoon and Diana and Mallory Walker. Cipher Brief CEO Suzanne Kelly and COO Brad Christian were also spotted along with journalist and media investor Marcus Brauchli. The Politico mention would have been better if editors had kept in a line about Pincus’ former Washington Post column, , which moved over to The Cipher Brief several years ago.
FLORIDA MAN (NATURALLY) THINKS HE IS A CIA “AGENT” Aaron Fedukovich of Ocala, FL, was taken into custody early on the morning of Halloween after allegedly shooting at several vehicles as he drove north on I-95. The shooter reportedly told deputies he believed the other vehicles were part of the Mafia and he was a CIA agent. The driver of one of the vehicles shot at was hit in the stomach but is expected to survive. There was no explanation of why “Agent” Fedukovich decided to shoot at vehicles in Florida rather than leave that to his FBI counterparts whose mission includes domestic matters.
JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN: A book was published last week titled, Churchill’s Shadow: The Life and Afterlife of Winston Churchill. Apparently, the afterlife refers not to ghostly matters – but just the iconic reputation of Churchill. Author Geoffrey Wheatcroft reportedly pokes holes in some of the Churchill saga including focus on his “inordinate fondness for alcohol that once found him drinking whisky before breakfast.” This reminds us of Abraham Lincoln’s comment about complaints that Ulysses S. Grant was drinking too much – and allegedly offering to send a barrel of whatever he was drinking to all his other generals.
SEND US A BARREL OF NEWS TIPS, WILL YA? Before we move on to the afterlife, please send any news tips you have to TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
