What the Heck?! Thread (Closed)

[plawolf]

China apparently killed/jailed 20 CIA spies between 2010 and 2012, hobbling American spying efforts. One guy was shot in between his eyes in front of all his buddies. CIA even now doesn't know how it happened, whether it was a leak, a mole, a hack, etc... They go on to say the Russians don't play around either; China and Russia are the hardest countries to set up spy rings in. I'll take that as a compliment.

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LOL I can't tell if they're complaining or admiring the handiwork of an adversary...

This is all part and parcel of the espionage world. Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.

However, what I found most interesting about the piece is the following paragraph

The CIA's mole hunt in China, following the severe losses to its network there, was intense and urgent. Nearly every employee of the US Embassy in Beijing was scrutinized at one point, the newspaper said.

Firstly, it's a clear admission that the CIA is running out of the US embassies in China.

While not a big revelation or surprise to anyone, it does indirectly highlight the effectiveness of Chinese counter-intelligence that the CIA are forced to do so. As this does significantly limit their operational capabilities if all comings and goings from your CIA headquarters in country need to literally go past Chinese police on the way in and out of their base.

It also cast significant doubt on the CIA's ability to continue operations in the event of overt hostilities breaking out, as the US embassy would be the first to close, and they would loose their main base of operation and safe haven.

The scope of the mole hunt would also indirectly point to how much of the US China embassy staff are CIA, or at least CIA support staff.

After all, why would they need to scrutinise someone if they clearly and obviously don't have access to classified information or spying activities to be able to compromise them even if they wanted to? That would be like checking the mechanical typewriter of your neighbour for malware after you suffered a cyber attack. Pointless and totally off-base.

 

[antiterror13]

China apparently killed/jailed 20 CIA spies between 2010 and 2012, hobbling American spying efforts. One guy was shot in between his eyes in front of all his buddies. CIA even now doesn't know how it happened, whether it was a leak, a mole, a hack, etc... They go on to say the Russians don't play around either; China and Russia are the hardest countries to set up spy rings in. I'll take that as a compliment.

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LOL I can't tell if they're complaining or admiring the handiwork of an adversary...

Interesting ... if I were in charge ... I would probably keep them alive and feed wrong info to the CIA ... thats would be much better option ... and potentially you could get some more informants cought

 

[manqiangrexue]

Interesting ... if I were in charge ... I would probably keep them alive and feed wrong info to the CIA ... thats would be much better option ... and potentially you could get some more informants cought

Straight out of Sun Tzu! I'm sure they mined them for as much info/contacts and dug as deep as they could go before they decided they were no use anymore. It would be very unlike Zhongnanhai to rage-kill useful people. As a matter of fact, if someone ordered the captured spies to be killed immediately, then that commander probably just earned himself an internal investigation.

 

[plawolf]

Interesting ... if I were in charge ... I would probably keep them alive and feed wrong info to the CIA ... thats would be much better option ... and potentially you could get some more informants cought

What makes you think that wasn't what the Chinese had been doing for years previously?

The size and scope of the operation would suggest a significant build up time, so this wasn't something done on a whim or in a rush.

To conduct counter-espionage activities on such a scale is risky and costly, because such a strong action would demand a similarly strong reaction from the enemy. So they Chinese would have had to expect, or be prepared to accept, that the US would be able to either find and neutralise the leak, and/or switch systems and render any computer-based vulnerabilities found useless.

So to mount such an operation could be because of any number of reasons, just a few possibilities off the top of my head:

- China was sending America a strong message. Late 2010 was when the Arab Spring was kicking off, but the CIA would be been laying the foundations for them for years beforehand. At the time, there were strong 'rumours' of a 'Jasmine Revolution' in China, so much so that the US ambassador himself was at the planned kick off event. But it was a laughing stock non-event, with more Chinese security agents there than CIA sponsored agitators, suggesting the CIA operation was thoroughly compromised and dismantled.
- China had major events/operations planned in those two years that it was worth the cost to ensure those were not discovered or disrupted by the CIA;
- China had compromised the CIA's equipment contractor/subcontractor, and wanted all CIA operatives to switch to the compromised batch ASAP. For a security breach of this scale, a systematic change of all computer systems active during the breach would have been standard.

OTOH, this whole story may be a smokescreen or cover.

 

[plawolf]

Truly WTH worthy.

It's not just Trump who is sitting this out, but rather America, China, the EU, the rest of the BRICs countries.

The only market of note that is even involved is Japan. So no prizes for guessing who is paying through the nose to prop up this dead horse project.

The very essence of TPP was to use American and Japanese economic carrots to tempt a collection of Pacific nations to form a trade block designsed to freeze China out and check China's growth. Kind of like a pre-China-WTO-2.0, with the ultimate aim of drawing more and more countries into the fold as to make it possible to supplant the WTO one day, only without China or Russia or anyone else they don't like, so they can keep all the fruits of global trade for themselves and their minions.

The carrots being that market access to those follower countries would be far more favourable than under WTO rules.

With America now bulking at the cost under Trump and withdrawing from the deal altogether, to continue Japan is now having to bear the full costs of making the whole thing worth the time of the others.

This is going to put significant strain on parts of Japan's economy, especially its previously hyper-protected areas like agriculture, SMEs, potentially even finance and services etc.

Under the original plan, Japanese losses in those areas were supposed to have been offset by benefits from cheaper access to the US market, as well as increased US FDI into Japan.

Without the US to pass those costs up to, its hard to see how this TPP-mini-me will be sustainable for Japan, since they are getting all the negatives of the original TPP and then some, without the lion share of the benefits.

Looks like they are betting on Trump being a one-term president, or maybe even impeached long before his term is up, and that whoever takes over will want to bring back the original TPP master plan.

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TPP trade deal will continue without Trump

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Image copyrightTIMOTHY A. CLARY
Image captionThe controversial trade pact was dealt a blow when the US ditched the deal
Asia-Pacific trade ministers have agreed to resuscitate the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, despite US President Donald Trump abandoning it.

Mr Trump signalled in January he would block the passage of the 12-nation pact in order to protect American jobs.

Trade ministers from the 11 remaining countries have met in Vietnam to get the deal back on track.

The representatives also agreed to help the US rejoin the deal at any time.

The bid to revive the TPP, which would have covered 40% of the global economy, was led by trade ministers from Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand trade minister Todd McClay said the remaining countries "are committed to finding a way forward to deliver" the deal.

Door still open
Although the door will be kept open for the US to rejoin the pact, its trade representative Robert Lighthizer said it would not return to the TPP.

"The United States pulled out of the TPP and it's not going to change that decision."

"The president made a decision, that I certainly agree with, that bilateral negotiations are better for the United States than multilateral negotiations."

The remaining 11 countries pushing on with the deal are Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.

 

[Equation]

OTOH, this whole story may be a smokescreen or cover.

Perhaps, but the story does gave a wider perspective about how CIA agents in ALL over the world are dying during duty or off duty. The black stars on those CIA memorial wall just kept on growing at a faster rate than before (say the Cold War). Now these stars includes ALL of the agents from past and present and in ANY part of the world operations.

 

[plawolf]

Perhaps, but the story does gave a wider perspective about how CIA agents in ALL over the world are dying during duty or off duty. The black stars on those CIA memorial wall just kept on growing at a faster rate than before (say the Cold War). Now these stars includes ALL of the agents from past and present and in ANY part of the world operations.

I don't think foreign collaborators get a star, otherwise they would need a much bigger wall...

PS, did they re-size the first star?

 

[Equation]

I don't think foreign collaborators get a star, otherwise they would need a much bigger wall...

PS, did they re-size the first star?

I don't know if the re-size the first star it's probably a more close up image of the 1st star.

 

[Equation]

What an idiot! And this happens at a United flight coming out of Shanghai to Newark.

Travelers Chant ‘Lock Him Up’ As Man In Trump Hat Is Removed From United Plane
“We’re grateful for the patience shown by our customers who endured the disruptive behavior of this passenger,” United says.

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had a man sporting a

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“Make America Great Again” campaign hat removed from a flight in Shanghai. The man delayed takeoff for hours as he was escorted from the flight for being belligerent, the airline confirmed in a statement Monday.

The incident is the latest in a

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this year, with United hitting the headlines for an

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. This time, passengers were reportedly upset with the unnamed man in the Trump campaign hat for refusing to allow anyone to sit next to him on Flight 187, apparently because he had been refused an upgrade.

He became so disruptive that airline staff told passengers to exit the plane so that they could remove him before the flight could travel to its destination in Newark, according to the airline. By the time the plane took off, it had to make an unscheduled stop in

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, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

In scenes reminiscent of

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2016 presidential rival

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at campaign rallies,

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show people in the terminal at Shanghai Pudong International Airport chanting “charge him” and “lock him up” at the man.

“Obviously,

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,” Alexis Zimmerman, who was flying back to Newark, told The Washington Post. Zimmerman said she heard the man say, “I know people don’t like my hat.”

Fellow passengers reported the man called other travelers names on the flight, including “

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, “

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” and “Hillary.”

He referred to another passenger as “stupid friend over here that don’t know how to speak English,”

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.

It’s unclear what happened to the man in Shanghai.

“We’re grateful for the patience shown by our customers who endured the disruptive behavior of this passenger, as well as the exceptional poise and professionalism of our flight crew,” United said in a statement.

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[Blackstone]

What an idiot! And this happens at a United flight coming out of Shanghai to Newark.

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I'm just cynical enough to suspect it's a Hillary-loving DemocRat plant.