THE CURSE OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. Several Dead Drop sources told us how surprised they were to see several news items recently about an Inspector General’s investigation into a salty tirade reportedly launched by Lieutenant General John Mulholland when he was Deputy Commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command. Army General Mulholland, who is now Associate Director for Military Affairs at the CIA, was reprimanded for cussing like a sailor when chewing out subordinates in April 2014. “The Army sure has changed since I served” said one grizzled veteran. Mulholland is accused of suggesting to staffers who he thought did a lousy job that they should all “shoot themselves.” “That’s mild compared to what my skipper suggested we do to ourselves,” a Navy alumna said. Here at The Dead Drop we are (slowly) coming to terms with the requirement that other places of employment be “safe places” where never is heard a discouraging word – but SOCOM? Give us a @#$@#$ break.
ASH CAN’T: Senior Pentagon officials are reportedly holding their breath waiting to see how big a deal the Senate Armed Services Committee makes out of the brouhaha over Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s use of personal email for official business. Carter has (rightly) taken personal responsibility for ignoring DOD policy and improperly using his private email account at precisely the same time former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was being pummeled for doing the same thing. “I can almost guarantee you,” one Pentagon vet told us, “if the SASC wants to find something that should have been classified in Carter’s email – they will.” Seemingly innocuous administrative items, it was explained, can, for example, give you insights into SECDEF’s upcoming travel schedule – which generally is classified SECRET.
WHO LEAKED IT? It is always dangerous and difficult to try to guess the origin of a media leak. But it is also fun – and here at The Dead Drop we’re all about living on the edge – so who leaked to the New York Times the original story about Ash Carter’s sloppy handling of email? The Times first story on December 16 cited White House and Defense officials as confirming Carter’s (mal) practice – as well as emails obtained by the NYT. But The Dead Drop hears informed speculation that the Times was first put on the hunt by a current State Department political appointee who had a couple of axes to grind. One was the fact that as a Hillary supporter, the official thought that outing Carter would somehow help Clinton: “See, everyone does it.” But there is also speculation that there may be some bad blood between the State Department official and Carter – and paybacks are hell.
PUTIN ON THE BLITZ: What are U.S. officials running the anti-ISIS campaign wishing for this Christmas? Apparently they’d like Santa to bring them a more cooperative Russian partner. Dead Drop sources tell us that as of this week, the U.S. and coalition partners have flown over 9,000 airstrikes against ISIS in both Iraq and Syria. And while Putin claims his troops are punishing all the naughty actors in Syria, State Department officials say there is precious little evidence the Russians are hitting ISIS forces. Our informed source tells us that to make matters worse, the Russian airmen are as likely to drop their presents down the wrong chimney as not.
HOMELAND RECAP – A FALSE GLIMMER: Don’t even think about reading further if you don’t want to know what happened in the season five finale of Showtime’s “Homeland” in an episode called “A False Glimmer.” We were expecting lots of surprises in this episode – and the biggest one was that last week’s cliff hanger was resolved with such a whimper –and so early in the hour. Last week’s show ended with Carrie running into the U-Bahn tunnel in search of terrorists about to set off a sarin device. This week starts with her being jumped by terrorist with a heart of gold Qasim…who she manages to talk into trying to stop his cousin Bibi from setting off the device. Seconds before the appointed moment – as the target subway train arrives – there is some bang, bang….Qasim and Bibi are dead…no gas is released…and we still have 50+ minutes left to round out the season.
Much of that time is spent on Carrie looking for love in all the wrong places. She meets up with former boyfriend Jonas…who despite some time spent making up, decides that life around Carrie is too unpredictable and he wants out. (He also learns that it is not wise to use the word “crazy” around her – since it’s pretty rude to say to someone with mental illness.)
Saul engages in a discussion with Russian no-good-nik Ivan…and convinces him that since Allison is on the run presumably on her way to that dacha in Moscow – Ivan can either cooperate and end up a ski bum in Jackson Hole….or not cooperate and be in the hole at a SuperMax.
Meanwhile German intelligence arrests the dislikeable American journalist Laura and tells her that unless she cooperates – they will send her accomplice, hacker Numan, back to his native Turkey where as Laura puts it: “He will be executed or worse.” Laura elects to play along and goes back on German TV (where she has become a regular) – this time to falsely claim that the now-dead non-terrorist Arab phone salesman Faisal Marwan was really a bad guy after all.
After getting dumped by Jonas – Carrie remembers Quinn and goes to see him in the hospital – and finds he is undergoing brain surgery. The prospects of his regaining consciousness are slim. Dar Adal shows up mysteriously in Quinn’s hospital room and just happens to have on him Quinn’s last will and testament – in which Quinn declares that he loved Carrie. Dar opines that Quinn sure would hate to be a vegetable.
Otto Düring asks Carrie to be his partner…and share his life…in one of the most awkward TV moments since Sunday’s Miss Universe finale.
Allison hides out at a Russian safe house which doubles as a place where under-aged girls are put into sex trafficking. (Yeah, good cover). Eventually a stern SVR lady puts Allison in the trunk of a car and tells her when she gets out of the trunk, 3.5 hours later, the sky she sees will be Russian. Unfortunately for Allison…Ivan has opted for Saul’s ski bum option…and the getaway car is diverted to some place where it is shot full of holes. We see Saul check out the trunk to make sure that his old flame Allison has been snuffed out. She has.
Meanwhile Carrie has made it back to Quinn’s hospital room and has barricaded the door. Is she about to flat line him to fulfill his desire to move toward the darkness? We’ll never know – at least not until next season. Sunlight suddenly comes through the shades – and we fade to black until next year.
NAILED IT: The offer to resettle Ivan to Jackson Hole and give him a nice annuity ring true. Although the Agency would not refer to it as “witness protection” as Saul did when making the offer.
After the thwarted UBahn attack, Carrie gives a short speech to Saul saying she didn’t save the day…it was Qasim. Sounds like administration efforts to stress we are not at war with Islam…just some bad guys.
FAILED IT: The German TV presenters seem particularly credulous. Laura comes on and declares “X” and they say – OK, fine. She comes on a few days later and say “Y” they accept that too. Also, those Russians must drive awfully fast. The driving time between Berlin and Moscow is about 19 hours. Not sure where in Russia Allison was going…but 3.5 hours in the trunk would not have gotten her half way through Poland…let alone Belarus and into Mother Russia. The attack on the car carrying Allison seems to be conducted in Russia…at least that is where the Russian drivers think they are. Are we to believe that Saul and the CIA are conducting hits inside Russia? Maybe they will sort this out in Season Six.
