Deep Cover

  Without going into too much intricate detail a Deep Cover operative is a spy placed within an organization to get intel. These people are sometimes refereed to as Sleeper Agents but for this blog I will keep everything as simple as possible. A spy is the most useful source of information (Humint) human intel has been working for thousands of years. I am bringing this issue to the forefront because of the NYC deep cover agent that was arrested for being part of a motorcycle gang last month that made national news. This kind of work is as dangerous as it gets and these operatives have to put on an acting job that far surpasses Hollywood Actors because in the world of espionage and intel gathering these agents lives are  truly at stake.The movie Donnie Brosco is a real life accurate depiction of how FBI Agent Joeseph Pistone fell so deep into his role he actually stepped over to the other side. As an outsider looking in it is easy to say Black or White good vs bad however when spy's are placed on the ground it sometimes becomes very easy to develop emotional bonds with the people you are living with and gaining incredible intel on whether acting as a sleeper agent or otherwise.Sleeper agents have little or no contact with their sponsor so it is easy to see how one could move to the other side based on emotional connections alone and loyalty to god and country soon  become a distant memory. CIA case officers are what most people think about when they think about what a spy is or does however these agents aren't the actual spies them self they are the ones who recruit the spies while working under diplomatic cover for the USA. For the most part they have legit looking government credentials in order to gain aces to certain circles to infiltrate their organisation by gaining the trust and respect of certain individuals by using monetary  bribes etc..in order to turn them into double agents or to simply gain  intel. Valerie Plame was a  NOC (non official cover) spy. This is one step above the case officer as far as the danger zone level because when these operatives go deep when they are a NOC if they get discovered they are trained to deny any connection to our government so this means no diplomatic immunity. Our government may find a way to back or cover for them eventually or they may not  How much more dangerous can you get then this, that is why when a  few unscrupulous agenda driven individuals within the Bush administration outed Valerie and blew her cover and essentially ruined her life just because her husband wrote an article that spoke the truth this was truly unconscionable. Although Richard Armitage admitted he leaked this I believe it was inadvertent on his end because he was a solid guy that exposed the reality about all the cronyism and bully Rumsfeld and his sycophants like Scooter Libby who ran with this story and who had a real revenge motive to hurt this high ranking CIA operative. It isn't the suits life that are on the line so what do they care so they made up a bull shit story and manipulated some intel to give us a reason to invade Iraq and completely forgot and neglected our real target Afghanistan. And the real patriot  Valeries husband an American Ambassador they destroyed and ruined his life and put his wifes life in the highest level of an already high danger zone just because he wrote an article that actually exposed  the truth. There was no motive for Armitage because he was a seasoned Vietnam Vet who was one of the first ones that called out the incompetence and the unprofessional battle plan for Iraq by the Cheneys and Paul Bremers of this world.  Cheney deserves some credit for questioning the veracity of the CIA chief George Tenets initial intel report when it came back w/ no WMDs because the CIA blew it big time back in the first gulf war of 91 when they completely missed out on discovering Husseins nuclear bomb site. However overall he was an agenda driven war monger who didn't care how many lives he had to ruin to achieve the  administrations aggressive pursuit of a full scale Iraq invasion.. I didn't have a problem going into Iraq but not  at the expense of getting the job done first in Afghanistan. Our guys were getting killed in Afghanistan because war was being conducted on the cheap so to speak, the Ranger units and others had no money because all of the precious funds were being wasted in Iraq.  If you are going to go to war please listen to the seasoned warriors that have been there before and don't make up lies and manipulate us with false patriotism and destroy innocent peoples lives to further your own pathetic political agenda and please don't send our brave warriors directly into harms way into a hornets nest where road side bombs became the weapon of choice that  killed and maimed our men and women in unarmored Humvees etc with little or no ROEs (rules of engagement). where there was absolutely no end game in site. Iraq accomplished absolutely nothing, it ruined thousands of lives and tarnished our international image by making us appear as phony bullies and as ugly Americans and is going to end up costing our government 3 trillion dollars. We didn't even get control of the oil fields or any imperialistic power motivated monetary gain  whatsoever as a country  however the Halliburtons etc.. and the civilian contracting world was clearly established that is for sure. That is exactly what Ike warned us about the Frankenstein monster, our American war machine.These suits were warned well in advance that our conventional Army was ill equipped and undermanned, General Shinseki called for about 400,00 boots on the ground to get the job done the right way. Although they had no training in counter insurgence warfare as conventional units this is the only way to handle an ugly unconventional guerrilla war with plenty of civil wars in between that was guaranteed to transpire and was predicted by our real military leaders and spy chiefs   A good friend of mine was an Iraqi that became an American citizen  He was recruited out of the Army to become a Green Beret SF operator but please don't think just because he was a valuable intel source ,ie- an indigenous Iraqi who was a perfect asset due to his first hand  knowledge of the lay of the land so to speak that he was given special treatment during the selection process and rigorous training that followed. The selection training in itself weeds out the majority of the already toughest, seasoned and hardened Army warriors and that is only the very beginning of the kind of torture ridden Olympic level type grind our men have to endure to earn the coveted Green Beret. My friend ultimately earned his stripes so to speak and this is what led him back to his home country going house to house dressed as an insurgent with other members of his SF team. He was shot and wounded during one of these missions inside one of the houses but didn't know this until much later because his adrenaline was pumping at such a high level.. This is what led his American SF team to start racing to the nearest battlefield hospital at breakneck speed, however we must keep in mind that this deepest of all deep cover units were dressed as Iraqi insurgents and they were in an insurgent mobile which was a perfect target for our American soldiers as they raced closer and closer to their destination. The way my good friend explained it to me although they were doing the best they could to identify themselves as an American SF team they were nearly all taken out by our soldiers who weren't trained properly on how to identify friendly SOF units based on our overall lack of preparation for the entire campaign to begin with which was a boondoggle to say the least. He was flown to Germany and then Walter Read where he eventually recovered but was medically retired from his unit and the entire Army shortly thereafter due to the nature of his wound. He is a great man however last time I talked to him he said that he was out of work. My next question was how is  a valuable asset at the highest level where to begin with we had an extreme shortage of Arabic speaking trusted sources out of work and not scooped up immediately by a private intel firm, or another OGA (other government agency) or even the CIA itself? This is a man who already survived Green Beret selection and the training that followed. The Defense Language Institute started to train our American soldiers in Arabic training at an expeditious pace and these fine men and women did a great job picking up this extremely difficult language however they are Americans, not indigenous citizens that have already been trained at the highest level that had operational deployments under their belt.. The answer to this question lies in the bureaucratic military industrial complex war machine that has so many dropped balls on a daily basis that they actually forget which balls they drop because it happens so often. This means that a great man  sits around unemployed with nobody to help him or immediately recruit or even know that he actually even existed anymore because of the mountains of paperwork and red tape our spy agencies have to deal with on a day to day basis. That is why I took it upon myself to help him with his resume and spread it across the globe because he is  my good friend who deserved a chance to utilize his special skills to help our country in that so called Iraqi quagmire or some of the other hot spots.. Ultimately he got picked up by an OGA but it took much too long and this was for no other reason then because our leaders don't work together in unison to take advantage of an invaluable asset the government has already spent millions on just  for training alone. Our government spends millions of dollars to train one SOF member, so this means for the most part give or take a few arguments USMC Scout Sniper and Force Recon operators, Army Green Beret and Rangers specifically of the 75 Regiment, Delta Force, Navy Seals and Air Force Para Rescue Teams. It is extremely important to remember these amazing warriors when they come back from theater and their operational deployments due to retirement or for any battlefield wound, PTSD etc.. The system is in failure because alot of these men would be perfect assets to our private spy agencies and Private Military Teams once they heal up however they aren't given enough or any training at all on how to market themselves to a company like Triple Canopy and many others so basically this means the highest trained operators in the world already with operational deployments under the belt go home to our American civilian society with no pension and alot of them are flat out ignored. Military Units and even SOF unit leaders don't know enough about the private side so to speak for the most part. I know this on a  personal level because I had many of these fine warriors contact me and send their resumes and tell me the exact same thing, that they were ignored in a world just like my Iraqi friend for no other reason then bureaucratic incompetence and lack of proper communication across the board. Our Private Spy firms seem to have a dark and black mystique that traditional military soldiers are kept in the dark about  when they get out and believe me when I tell you these men need to have jobs that they can really relate to and there simply isn't anything stateside that even comes close to anything that would pique their interest. Do you think they want to go into a backstabbing corporate world where the guy standing next to him makes believes hes his friend while he really is going out of his way to sabotage  just because he is a direct threat to him as far as advancement or promotion is concerned when he come from a world where no man is left behind and the bonds that are developed are eternal and real filled with respect and love for each other, not for the system or bureaucracy itself but for one another where they trust each other with their life each and every day. These people need to be recruited to the private side immediately otherwise they will fall into an abyss of civilian discontent where not even a police officer job is something of interest for the most part. The SOF operators are burned out and flat out tired from back to back operational deployments with little or no down time in between so many want and need to decompress with a low stress job but  as far as Local Law enforcement is concerned the only thing that remotely comes close to their background would be a high speed tactical SWAT Team or if they could go directly into the FBI Hostage rescue team they wouldn't mind. Other then that real detective deep cover intel work would suit their fancy but to be part of a bureaucratic paperwork shuffling based cop culture, no that wouldn't really work for most of them. Stateside private security is an absolute joke and would be an insult as noted in my bio so the only other jobs that may satisfy their unique talent  would be the few coveted  Executive Protection Agent jobs that open up because even here in Greenwich these jobs are few and far between.Unfortunately alot of these decision makers don't want these  warriors either. A perfect example of this was when a Houston EP detail opened that paid about 85k in 2009, I placed my associates resume who was a former member of Seal Team 4 and Trident security at the top of the pile however at that moment he worked for Blackwater. He wanted to come home stateside permanently to be with his fiance but was flat out refused for this job because I was told this directly due to all of the bad press about American Contractors overseas and they ended up going with a mellow stateside guy who never stepped foot outside of our borders for an assignment. You cant let the actions of a few rogue operators tarnish the image of the entire industry, everybody is an individual and must be treated as such. As mentioned in my previous blog most of these men  are the very ones you would want in a life and death firefight or a blow and go ep detail that is an extreme rare occurrence stateside but its a real risk none the less. So please forget about political correct bs about how our operators aren't great fits for stateside work because they have all ready proven themselves to be superhuman just to earn their SOF badge and whatever private work that may have followed and give them the respect they have justly earned and make sure they get picked up asap by our private intel firms before they fall into the civilian abyss that without question they can not relate to.. They need  a great job so they don't have to leave their families or wife again to go back overseas because that is the only way to make a decent dollar. This kind of dangerous work is ingrained in their character, going back to the states where people watch reality tv and complain about the dumbest and most inconsequential trivial issues on earth makes these warriors upset and full of discontent. Most of their thoughts convey the message that our ugly Americans sit home and complain when they have great lives and they have absolutely no clue about how ugly war really is and what our brave operators experience 24/7 overseas. This same premise holds true for all of our military soldiers and wounded warriors as well we need good jobs for all of the men and women who fought for this country.  A little dose of reality and gratitude wouldn't hurt for all of us because although Iraq was a preemptive bs war based on fabricated intel and political agendas and the battle plan was destroyed by our suits at the Pentagon  9-11 wasn't that long ago. Lets find good stateside jobs for our warriors, ones that they can relate to that pay very well so they don't have to go back overseas- they have already been through enough haven't they?   .