America’s Throwaway Spies: How the CIA Failed Iranian Informants

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spies-iran/

by cpeterso • 4 years ago

77 63 4 years ago

This made me sick to my stomach. Absolutely revolting behaviour by the CIA against extraordinarily brave Iranians who risked their lives and even did prison time to help.

Overtonwindow• 4 years ago

If you think that’s bad, you should read up on what the author Tim Weiner did. He outed a CIA informant in the newspaper because he could, which directly led to the man’s death. Timothy Weiner has blood on his hands.

Source: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/the-road...

boomboomsubban2• 4 years ago

"If you think CIA incompetence leading to hundreds of informants being burned is bad, wait til you hear about a journalist publishing a story that maybe burned one informant for what they consider a good reason."

macinjosh• 4 years ago

Journalists have a duty to report information. Spies chose their profession and must live with the risks. It is not complicated.

openknot2• 4 years ago

I read the show notes but didn't listen to the podcast. Is this really true? The linked New York Times article by Weiner never names the subject, but instead reports on a "retired terrorist" [1]. I don't see this an "outing."

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/21/world/cia-re-examines-hir...

lm28469• 4 years ago

It's the same thing every single time: https://www.wsj.com/articles/left-behind-after-u-s-withdrawa...

charlieo88• 4 years ago

Sun Tzu's Art of War divides spies into five categories: Local spies; inward spies; converted spies; doomed spies; surviving spies.

These people seem to be in the doomed spies category.

"Having doomed spies, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy."

ch4s34• 4 years ago

The CIA continues to cover itself in shit and serve as a national embarrassment. The time has long since passed that we need to unravel this mess. From botched coups, to exploding cigars, torture chambers, and burned informants the CIA seems only capable of pissing away money and making us look terrible internationally.

colechristensen• 4 years ago

And in what circumstances would you hear about their successes?

saiya-jin• 4 years ago

World peace? Enemies forced to cooperate? Wars won? I mean the list would be almost endless.

Just like the list of their proved fuckups and outright careless evil done because 'we can' and 'who is gonna stop us'

boomboomsubban2• 4 years ago

Looking at recent stories about the CIA; there's this one, then one about how a report saying the CIA warned Germany about oil pipeline attacks in the summer somehow leaked, and one of then recreating a terrorists hideout they bombed. They seem to enjoy bragging.

ch4s34• 4 years ago

We can look back to the now public records of the early days of the agency and see that they were fuck ups from the start. We can see glimpses from KGB records exposed in the mitrokhin archives. There are leaks, and exposed diplomatic cables. Nothing paints a positive picture. Moreover, the constant embarrassment is very real.

the_af• 4 years ago

I think there are (at least) two failure modes for this kind of agencies:

1- They fail to stop state-level enemies, they fail to predict attacks, they fail to assist friendly troops.

2- They break the laws of their own country, commit torture, treason or what can be considered crimes against humanity in the pursuit of their mission.

What we are seeing belongs in the second category. Whether it's also the first is harder to assess (though like others have mentioned, their historical track record is less than stellar).

case0x00• 4 years ago

Precisely. Its easy to criticize an agency when one is only privy to the failures. What the public sees is such a tiny fraction of what actually goes on, including positive publications. Its a tough aspect of working in the intelligence community honestly, and especially concerning when many people want to de-fang US foreign intelligence.

LatteLazy• 4 years ago

Just look at the public record:

1. Knowing Russia would invade Ukraine - Success

2. Knowing Iraq had no WMD - Fail

3. Correctly predicting Iranian Nuclear progress/ambitions - Repeated fails

4. Knowing the USSR would collapse - Fail

5. Sept 11th - Mega fail

Compare those items with candidates for success. For instance, the CIA failed to discover Sept 11th. Have they ever foiled, has anyone in the US who might work with the CIA every foiled such a large attack? No.

The same for other areas: Maybe the CIA predicted North Korea would have nukes when they did. That would give them a one in 3 (the others being Iran and Iraq) success rate at WMD intelligence.

Even with the "assume they got everything right that we don't KNOW they got wrong" level of credulity, they're not as good as flipping a coin...

badrabbit6• 4 years ago

The CIA is not an independent agency, they do as the ametican public tell them.

Fatnino2• 4 years ago

Wrong on both counts.

The CIA has a blank check and does whatever the fuck they want. Much of it opposed by most Americans if they ever find out about it.

usednet3• 4 years ago

75 years of history disagree with you. Unless you believe the public told the CIA to arm the Mujahideen, overthrow Allende, invade Panama, recruit Nazis, traffic drugs - should I go on?

petre3• 4 years ago

Maybe the renewed cold war will prompt the CIA to get their shit together. The Russians have been actively sabotaging things in the EU through useful idiots and corrupt politicians.

One person who was able to sucessfully trick them so far is Marine LePen, who gladly takes their money while she keeps losing elections.

ThaDood• 4 years ago

Serious question - given its track record, why would anyone trust the CIA at this point? The promise of something better? Blackmail?

ubermonkey• 4 years ago

There is no good reason to trust it.

from• 4 years ago

People will literally give up their entire life savings in order to have someone guide them across miles of desert in 100 degree weather for just the chance to get into this country. Others are paid money, blackmailed, or they have ideological reasons.

lkrubner• 4 years ago

Something I wrote before:

"One of the interesting things about Sarah Chayes book is her description of the relationship between the CIA and the military. In her view, the military was relatively powerless, and lacked the ability to fight back against the CIA. Meanwhile, the CIA undermined the goals of the military in Afghanistan, especially when it came to fighting corruption."

https://demodexio.substack.com/p/thieves-of-state-part-4-of-...

Thieves of State

Why Corruption Threatens Global Security

By Sarah Chayes, 2015

Page 50–52

FridayoLeary3• 4 years ago

The united states has a long history of abandoning allies on all levels, from states to spies and nation. Both foreign and domestic (FBI informants). It's incredibly irresponsible as it destroys trust and can reverse years of work (see: Afghanistan, Iraq, Kurdistan etc etc.) It looks like its institutional.

jason-phillips5• 4 years ago

I think this article shows a poor understanding of how the CIA works, or how this business works in general. The narrative presented in the piece seems to assert that the CIA has some duty and responsibility to provide for its informants and their families. This is a misunderstanding of the situation and therefore the premise of this entire article is very tenuous and not worth much, in my estimation.

The truth is that CIA agents' job is to turn individuals who can provide something of value to the CIA. They use various methods to turn these resources, primarily relying on human weakness that can be exploited. That resource is then cultivated for the value it provides. That's it. The handler's job is to gain access, whether that be to information or other resources, through the resource. The handler's job is not to provide for the well-being of the resource or their family afterwards, that simply isn't how it works. That isn't how the US government works anywhere, based on my experience. [[ETA, except the VA, we do this for veterans]]

These people have a job to do, a mission, and that's what they're doing. That mission may not be palatable to you, but that is exactly what is going on here. This article, suggesting there is some duty to provide for resources after they've helped the CIA isn't how it works, at all. Any assertions or conjecture to the contrary displays a rather large lack of understanding about how work is prosecuted at the federal level, whether that be in the CIA or not.

x86_64Ubuntu• 4 years ago

If a prospective spy believes they will be burned by their handling organization, then they will never work for the CIA.

jason-phillips5• 4 years ago

That's a good point, but if one were thinking with the mindset you describe then one probably wouldn't be susceptible to the entreaties from their handler in the first place. I think you're not giving credit to how that relationship actually works and the personalities involved, especially the flipped resource.

donavanm• 4 years ago

A correction on terminology might prove enlightening. The US citizens working for the CIA are “spies”, handlers, or agents. Anyone who works for them, eg provides information, is an asset. They're not an employee, advisor, or “spy.” Theyre an asset to be used to the benefit of the United States as long as theyre useful.

That said your point on trust and incentive doesnt hold up to history. Being an asset and providing information to another country almost always ends in prison, or death, or best case exile. The material rewards are laughably small, thousands of dollars typically. And yet agents, of all nations, are good at their job and consistently succeed in recruiting new assets.

FridayoLeary3• 4 years ago

Your argument is flawed on so many levels. We are talking about people with emotions not machines to be exploited. Many spies are spying for ideological reasons not in return for any money. They place themselves in enormous danger in order to help the US. To not have the basic decency to even keep their identity secret is frankly reprehensible and irresponsible.

jason-phillips5• 4 years ago

That's your perspective and it's perfectly valid to me, believe it or not. But it's just one perspective. The evidence I've seen has shown that their mission and the way it's prosecuted don't align with your perspective; that's reality and one should be cognizant of that.

PoignardAzur2• 4 years ago

I wonder how much overlap there is between people who accept the justifications you describe, and people who claim that it's perfectly fine to persecute and torture Julian Assange because "he endangered US informants".

jason-phillips5• 4 years ago

I think in the Venn diagram you're proposing, there's a lot of overlap.

However, I think it's useful to look at this with a more objective lens in that these CIA employees are doing a job and that they also report to somebody and what that bog-standard relationship looks like. I think understanding how that fairly boring dynamic works in every federal agency may possibly help explain the behavior you're observing more than anything. There's really no great mystery to it.

dqpb• 4 years ago

You could make this argument about any relationship. After all, look at everyone who just got burned by Google Stadia.

Everything is a negotiation. Every relationship has the potential for Pareto efficiency. Most aren't Pareto efficient because of information asymmetry, desperation, lack of competence or experience, etc.

bhk• 4 years ago

You are correct, but at the same time your response shows a poor understanding of politics.

A "rather large lack of understanding" of the CIA on the part of the American public is exactly why the CIA is allowed to do what they do. For that reason, this lack of understanding is cultivated by the media and government.

jason-phillips5• 4 years ago

Yes, my bad. Carry on.

whearyou• 4 years ago

The US is unlikely to continue being able to recruit high value assets if those assets do not have some confidence they will be taken care of.

This sounds more short term thinking on particular individuals in the CIA than anything else

bpanon• 4 years ago

They deserve it if they believed the CIA would help them. Not smart.

petre3• 4 years ago

The second guy was clearly not smart having walked into an US consulate to collaborate with the CIA. Maybe he was very pissed off or has seen stuff he strongly disagreed with in his line of work.

guilhas• 4 years ago

The story here is USA constantly meddling around the world, while claiming to be the victim of unacceptable meddling.

Abandoning diplomacy and international agreed nuclear agreement, in favor of spy and sabotage, planting the seeds for the next "revolution"

joshxyz• 4 years ago

Damn this is sad to read, lots of wasted assets.

America’s Throwaway Spies: How the CIA Failed Iranian Informants

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