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Tuesday Reads: U.S.-Russia Cloak and Dagger Intrigue

Posted: May 14, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs, morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , |40 Comments
Ernest Hemingway reading The New York Times (naked)

Ernest Hemingway reading The New York Times (naked)

Good Morning!!

Ever since the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15, there has been plenty of intrigue going on between the U.S. and Russia.

There have been reports that Russia “withheld intel on” Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers, who spent about 7 months in Russia (Dagestan mostly) in 2012.

While he was in Dagestan, Tsarnaev was squired around by a relative who is “a prominent Islamist” and most likely introduced Tsarnaev to two men who were fighting with the Chechen rebels. Soon after these meetings, these men were killed by the Russians.

Tsarnaev had expressed interest in joining the fight for Chechen independence, but left Dagestan soon after his two friends were killed. He hurriedly traveled to Moscow and then flew back to JFK in NY without anyone in Russian intelligence noticing supposedly. No one can explain how Tsarnaev was able to board a plane for Russia at JFK Airport when he was on two U.S. terror lists or how he was able to fly out of Moscow when he was supposedly being closely watched by Russian intelligence during his stay there.

There have also been numerous reports of CIA connections to the Tsarnaev brothers. In addition, a professor at U. Mass Dartmouth (Brian Glynn Williams, a Chechnya expert) who has worked with the CIA [NOTE: This link to post by Mark Ames at nsfwcorp will be available for 23 hrs], served as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mentor for a project on Chechen ethnic identity that the younger Tsarnaev brother did as a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School. Dzhokhar later attended U. Mass Dartmouth, although Williams says he never had any direct contact with the future accused bomber (they interacted by e-mail).

The Latest U.S.-Russia Dustup

This morning news is breaking that an American diplomat has been detained in Russia by the FSB for allegedly trying to “recruit a Russian agent” for the CIA.

Fogel

Russia’s security services claimed Tuesday to have arrested a CIA agent posing as an employee of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow for allegedly trying to recruit a Russian secret service agent to work for the U.S.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had detained a man identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle on the evening of May 13 or early the next morning for attempting to recruit a Russian agent….

Russian news agency RIA Novosti quoted a statement from the FSB as saying Fogle was arrested while trying to recruit a member of the Russian security services, and he had on his person, “special technical devices, written instructions for the Russian citizen being recruited, a large sum of cash and means of changing his appearance.”

After being arrested and processed by Russian security services, the man was handed back to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Moscow.

The FSB said Fogle had been masquerading as a career diplomat at the Political Section of the U.S. Embassy, but that he was a CIA employee. A photo provided by the FSB and published across Russian media allegedly showed his Russian-issued diplomatic identification card.

And get this: Fogle was wearing a long blonde wig when he was arrested! And he had other disguises for his potential regruit.  From the NYT:

Photographs that appeared on Russian news sites on Tuesday afternoon showed a man in a blue checked shirt and baseball cap being pinned to the ground, evidently by a Russian officer. Further images showed a number of items evidently confiscated from him: a brown and blond wig, three pairs of glasses, several stacks of 500-Euro notes, and an embassy card identifying him as Ryan C. Fogle.

Mr. Fogel was brought to F.S.B. headquarters and then delivered to officials at the American embassy, the statement said. The F.S.B. went on to say its counterintelligence service has documented a series of recent attempts by the United States to recruit officers from Russian law enforcement and “special departments.”

According to the Times article, “Russia’s foreign ministry has summoned United States Ambassador Michael A. McFaul to appear on Wednesday to respond to the allegation” that Fogel was “carrying written instructions for a Russian recruit.” From Twitter, I learned that Fogel has a condo in McLean, Va.

Russia Today has lots of photos, including a photograph of an instruction sheet offering money and explaining how to set up a gmail account (WTF?!) to be used to contact U.S. intelligence. Apparently Fogel had “a large sum of cash” (in Euros?!) with him to hand over to the new recruit. Is this really how the CIA operates? It seems so half-assed.

CIA spy

Connections to the Tsarnaev Investigation?

Whether any of this will connect back to the Tsarnaev saga, I have no way of knowing; but I can’t help but suspect it will. There has simply been too much recent activity between the U.S. and Russia being reported lately for this to be completely unrelated to the Boston bombing investigation. Time will tell.

I think that’s about all the weird news I can handle for right now. I’ll leave it to you to post your own links–on any topic–in the comment thread.

Have a great day!!

40 Comments on “Tuesday Reads: U.S.-Russia Cloak and Dagger Intrigue”

  1. roofingbird's avatar roofingbird says:
    May 14, 2013 at 10:16 am

    A written letter? Nah.

    Even translated, it reads like one of those Nairobi scam letters.

    Special tech equipment- a pocket knife and a compass? Nah.

    I carry those too.

    And seriously, a blond wig with those eyebrows? Nah.

  2. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 10:17 am
  3. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 10:27 am

    Russia to expel US diplomat — WSJ

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said “such provocative actions in the spirit of the “Cold War” in no way help to strengthen mutual trust. The ministry said Mr. Fogle had been declared persona non grata and Russia demanded his immediate departure in a meeting Tuesday with U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul.

    According to FSB the statement, which accused Mr. Fogle of operating as an undercover CIA officer, the American diplomat was found with special technical equipment, a recruitment note written to a Russian citizen, a large sum of money and products designed to change a person’s appearance.

    “The U.S. intelligence community recently has made repeated attempts to recruit employees of Russia’s law-enforcement bodies and special agencies, which have been recorded and monitored by [Russia’s] counterespionage forces,” the FSB said. The CIA declined to comment.

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      May 14, 2013 at 10:34 am

      The detention of Mr. Fogle may throw a wrench in the White House’s plans to rebuild trust with the Kremlin. It also comes almost three years after the U.S. exposed a network of Russian sleeper agents that included the redheaded Anna Chapman, who later returned to Russia to become a model and minor celebrity.

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
      May 14, 2013 at 10:59 am

      Welcome to the world of OGA. When you look at the incompetence on display here, it’s really easy to see how they missed the threats to the CIA operation in Benghazi which got those people killed.

  4. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 11:06 am

    What journalists need to know about the Justice Department’s seizure of AP phone records

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      May 14, 2013 at 11:08 am

      Carl Bernstein rips White House over AP subpoena

      Carl Bernstein said Tuesday the Justice Department’s decision to subpoena the phone records of dozens of Associated Press reporters in the name of stopping national security leaks was part of a broader campaign to “intimidate” reporters and their sources.

      “It is outrageous, totally inexcusable,” the legendary investigative reporter said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe. “This administration has been terrible on this subject from the beginning. The object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. This was an accident waiting to become a nuclear event and now it’s happened. There’s no excuse for it whatsoever. There’s no reason for this investigation, especially on this scale.”

  5. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 11:51 am

    2,000-year-old Mayan pyramid in Belize destroyed by construction crew

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/14/2000-year-old-mayan-pyramid-in-belize-destroyed-by-construction-crew/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

  6. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 14, 2013 at 12:14 pm

    I am going to be back in 87 degrees tomorrow in NOLA. Today, I am still feeling wintry cold at 54. Just glad the electricity came back on last night so the furnace could kick on for me. I am sure not accustomed to cooler weather any more

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      May 14, 2013 at 12:36 pm

      Hang in there! It’s cold here too, high today in the 50s. Just when I was getting used to the warm weather.

      • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
        May 14, 2013 at 1:24 pm

        i am a cold weather wimp … can’t believe I used to live in Minneapolis.

        • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
          May 14, 2013 at 1:39 pm

          IIRC from Physiology classes, it takes about 3-4 months to aclimatize to a cooler or warmer climate. So travel or quick fluctuations in temperature can be really tough on us.

  7. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 12:34 pm

    5 signs there’s something fishy about the alleged CIA spy arrested in Moscow

    Based on the available information so far, there seem to be three scenarios that might most plausibly explain what had happened. The first is that the Russian version of events is correct and that Fogle was just remarkably clumsy, putting incriminating information into an otherwise not-very-useful letter and promising impossible-sounding payouts to his source. The second is that Fogle is innocent, a mere embassy official framed to serve some Russian political end, although if this were the case you might expect the U.S. State Department to be protesting much more loudly than it is. A third scenario could be some combination of the two: that Fogle is with the CIA, but that the implausible-looking props and letter were planted.

    You’d think if the FSB planted the evidence, they would have done a more credible job.

  8. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 12:40 pm

    Dick Cheney lectures Obama About Benghazi And Preventing Terrorism Attacks

    Cheney called Benghazi “one of the worst incidents that, frankly, that I can recall in my career.”

    Um…. What about that tiny little attack on 9/11/2001 that was used to start two wars, kill hundreds of thousands of people and drain the U.S. treasury for generations to come?

    • Fannie's avatar Fannie says:
      May 14, 2013 at 1:02 pm

      Les we forget, he got away with 9/11 because they kept repeating the lies, time and time again, repeating the lies, until they had people beliving the lies. He’s out trying that tactic one more time before his number is called up yonder.

    • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
      May 14, 2013 at 1:21 pm

      You’d think Cheney could lie better than that; he’s been doing it for decades.

    • prolixous's avatar prolixous says:
      May 14, 2013 at 5:14 pm

      Why don’t we have Cheney arrested like Fogel and deported since he is obviously an agent of an organization (Bechtel) that has done irreparable harm to the country.

  9. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 14, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    CNN: CNN exclusive: White House email contradicts Benghazi leaks

    Jake Tapper corrects some previous stoies from ABC and others.

  10. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 1:50 pm
  11. NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
    May 14, 2013 at 2:18 pm

    Looks like an important documentary:

    In 1992, Angela Arellano, then a 19-year-old Marine based in Okinawa, told military police that a noncommissioned officer had raped her after an evening spent watching a football game on television. The investigation did not result in a prosecution. Instead, Arellano was accused of lying and disciplined for an after-hours violation. “They said he was an outstanding Marine and I was trying to smear his good reputation,” recalls Arellano of Tumwater, Thurston County [WA]. “I was given two weeks of restrictions, two weeks of extra duty and two months of reduced pay.”

    Arellano is one of eight military women whose stories are told in “
    Service: When Women Come Marching Home,” a documentary screened Monday night in Tacoma. …. The “Service” documentary was completed in 2012, the same year as the release of “The Invisible War,” a searing examination of military sexual assaults that was nominated for an Academy Award.

    “Service” explores sexual assaults as part of a broader look at the experiences of women in the military, the challenges they face coming home and the ways they have found to move forward with their lives.

    Screening schedule: http://www.servicethefilm.com/

  12. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 14, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    Atlantic: Congress Put Pressure on the IRS to Investigate Conservative Tax-Exempt Groups

    Over and over, members of Congress asked the IRS to scrutinize 501(c)4 groups for their political activity—and also to scrutinize the agency’s scrutiny of those groups.

    It’s not the White House after all.

  13. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    Billy Sol Estes died.

    http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/05/14/4849062/bille-sol-estes-the-king-of-texas.html

    • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
      May 14, 2013 at 5:04 pm

      Roger Stone has written a book on the JFK assassination, claims LBJ did it.

      These quote from Nixon are hilarious:

      the juiciest parts of Stone’s book may be a series of interviews he conducted with his former boss Nixon toward the end of the former president’s life. According to Stone, Nixon “never flatly said who was responsible [for Kennedy’s death]. But he would say, ‘Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but the only difference was I wouldn’t kill for it.”

      When pressed on who he thought killed Kennedy, Nixon “would shiver and say, ‘Texas,’” said Stone.

      Nixon, Stone says, had a long relationship with Jack Ruby, dating back to the time Nixon served on the House Un-American Activities Committee. There, Stone says, Ruby acted as an informant at Johnson’s request.

      I wonder if Nixon really knew Ruby?

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
      May 14, 2013 at 5:14 pm

      Estes lived the life he chose for himself. Huge crook but there’s something to be said for that anyway. 🙂

  14. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 14, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    Pro Publica —

    No Warrant, No Problem: How The Government Can Still Get Your Digital Data

  15. Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)'s avatar Mona (aka Wonk the Vote) says:
    May 14, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    OT: JJ comments closed on your post now, but love the Bette Davis/Bumpy Night!!! Gahhhh!!!

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