This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attack on September 11th, 2001, and the fifth anniversary of the intelligence operation “Crossfire Hurricane,” better known as former President Trump’s “Russiagate.” Although these events are separated in time, they both supply robust evidence of the long-term degradation of the American intelligence services. This corruption has caused incalculable damage to our country.
Of course, it is not about criminal corruption orientated to profit-making. Instead, we are talking about political corruption, the kind that posits a particular ideological foundation.
The precise date the corruption processes began is unlikely to be established. United States intelligence was unable to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, as the events with the downed TWA 800 flight showed, by 1996, the FBI was prepared to fulfill political orders. Recall the Iraqi WMD saga of 2003 or the recent “1/6 armed insurrection” farce of 2021.
Do these events represent just a random sequence? Does the Achilles heel of the American intelligence service lie in incompetence, or are there other factors in play? Such a track record of failures is likely to manifest prima facie evidence of systemic inadequacy of the intelligence apparatus.
The Cold War lasted half a century and stained American society. Ideological polarization has altered not just political parties but public institutions and every institution of government power. Thanks to the “active measures” of the Soviet intelligence networks, the GPU/OGPU/KGB/FSB, many American institutions caught the virus of socialism. Thus, the evolution of the American intelligence agencies to the left proceeded in parallel with the Sovietization of the American education system, Academics, Hollywood, social networks, businesses, and the military.
In the course of the Cold War, the American intelligence agencies also did not stay idle. Unquestionably, they carried out “active measures” against the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet sphere. During this bitter confrontation, a sort of “transfer of ideological viruses” took place. Russian intelligence got the virus of American pragmatism and capitalism. In contrast, American intelligence picked up the virus of carelessness and socialism.
The results of this ideological cross-contamination were quite different, in part because the indoctrination spread differently. The American virus spread “from the bottom up,” i.e., from ordinary Soviet agents living in the West to higher-ranking Moscow bosses. However, the Soviet virus spread “from the top down.” The post-Marxist worldview was implanted into America by appointing to critical positions political activists, donors, and agitators of the Democrat Party and its abundant left-wing satellites. For Americans, the lure of communist ideology turned out to be so powerful that the Russian intelligence forces succeeded in what other countries’ intelligence institutions thought of—to conquer political power in the country.
Incorporating American pragmatism, meanwhile, helped Russian intelligence services solve the strategic task of reorienting terrorists operating outside Russia toward strategic ends. The strategy of injecting a standard ideological needle worldwide was employed to establish a worldwide army of “useful idiots.” For that reason, most of the notable terrorist groups in the world have a post-Marxist foundation. Examples are plentiful: Hamas, Arafat’s Fatah, Kurds subordinated to the Communist Party of Kurdistan, the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq, Mandela’s African National Congress. Many “national liberation movements” in Latin America and Africa are also on this list.
Since the 19th century, ideology and terrorism have been the major export items from Russia. From this perspective, Russian intelligence was the ideological father of 9/11, though they did not take part in its preparation directly. Nevertheless, it was Soviet communists who forged an alliance of Marxist-atheists and Islamist fanatics, something unheard of before in world history.
Thus, transnational terrorism and terrorism franchise wars were born.
AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE FLIRTS WITH COMMUNISM
The American intelligence institutions, which caught the Soviet virus while flirting with communism, were unwilling to oppose their ideological brothers. Here we are talking about the higher echelons of intelligence as part of an all-permeating “interagency,” not about individual agents. The agents performed their work professionally, knew the terrorists’ plans, and warned their leadership. That led to a severe conflict within the American intelligence circles. This conflict represents not just a war of factions that exists in most organizations. The tension within the American intelligence services is, in fact, ideological.
The events of 9/11 were not just a wake-up call; it was a deafening failure of the “interagency.” The Washington bureaucracy had long been preoccupied with building “walls” to prevent intelligence information sharing since the 1980s. The now-declassified Congressional report confirms: “Prior to September 11th, information was inadequately shared not only within the Intelligence Community, but also between the Community, other federal agencies, and state and local authorities.”
There have been no significant failures on the intelligence front after 9/11. However, there were no notable successes, either. American society has developed an opinion on the bulk of “terrorist conspiracies” uncovered by the intelligence agencies over the past twenty years. The suspicion is that the intelligence establishment themselves created these conspiracies with the help of a network of secret agent-provocateurs.
The next bell that all was not well with American intelligence rang when the list of intelligence organizations of those countries that interfered in the 2016 presidential election became known—Russia, Ukraine, Italy, Great Britain, Australia, the Czech Republic, and Estonia. Of course, the United States intelligence had interfered too. These intelligence organizations worked against Trump, apart from Russia. (The Russian intelligence had acted simultaneously against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Their operation to inject the “Russian dossier” on Trump, concocted by the Russian intelligence through the election campaign of Hillary Clinton, turned out to be quite successful.)
The last alarm bell rang when the United States intelligence agencies organized a cover-up operation for political corruption machinations in 2016. Without a doubt, the surveillance of Trump and his campaign was all-encompassing. Still, American intelligence’s “active measures” on American soil were only partially successful because of the internal ideological conflict. That is why only a few people fell into crudely set traps—Carter Page, General Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Svetlana Lokhova, and Roger Stone.
As follows from the report of Special Prosecutor Mueller, none of them—like none of Trump’s entourage—was a Kremlin agent. Both opposing sides—left-leaning bosses and right-leaning agents—within the American intelligence knew even before the “Russiagate” investigation launched that the persecuted citizens were not criminals but consumables in a grander political game.
The American intelligence establishment went all-out in 2016. Intelligence agencies donated not just their reputation; they brazenly ratted out and ruined the excellent reputation of one of their freelance agents, Carter Page (who was not just an informant, but a key participant in counter-espionage operations). In order to conceal Page’s work for the CIA, the FBI even resorted to falsifying court documents.
Similarly, the intelligence bosses were not afraid to spoil the reputation of even their most influential freelance agent, President Donald Trump. (As it is known, since 1981, Trump has acted as a “bait” to draw in the interest of the Italian mafia and Russian organized criminal groups.)
Overall, the modus operandi of American intelligence has shifted toward the “end justifies the means.” As a result, the political-intelligence complex has received a baton from the military-industrial complex.
JOSEPH STALIN REJOICES IN HELL
The events of 9/11 set in motion also marked America’s radical shift to the left—and the election of former President Barack Obama. Osama bin Laden’s execution should not be viewed as an isolated episode. The Abbottabad raid took place during the Obama presidency in 2011. Still, President Obama belongs to the strain of leftists that does not tolerate coups, civil wars, and terrorist attacks. This camp prefers slow, subtle societal changes that, accumulated over decades, will ultimately bear the long-awaited socialist fruits (this approach of the left is called gradualism.) With his untimely terrorist attack, Bin Laden, without realizing it, actually went against the long-term plans of the American left and paid for it.
What could the adherents of the left ideology constructively offer America regarding the 9/11 attack? The left came up with something they always regarded as a panacea; another bureaucratic structure was born. In 2002, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was supposed to bring all 17 US intelligence agencies under one roof. The desired roof was created, yet the union was not. Funding for the DHS is astronomical, but there are no impressive results. Perhaps, there probably will not be—the new intelligence Leviathan is not geared towards that.
Funding for the new bureaucratic structure of the DHS (near 50 billion dollars a year) has already exceeded the CIA budget (about 40 billion). Therefore, the DHS acts just as a tool for primitive budget squandering. Nevertheless, under the leadership of DHS in America after 2001, over 50 small terrorist attacks were prevented. However, this is mainly the merit of the FBI. (Note that the FBI’s budget is approximately six times less than DHS’s). DHS is another striking example of how the Washington swamp emulates the Kremlin swamp’s financial, propaganda, and ideological methods. Reports from the Inspector General of the US Department of Justice, including a recent FBI report, exhibit an unattractive picture of corruption. There are bribes, case closings, targeted press releases, information sharing, and outright collusion with the ideologically friendly media.
Journalist Catherine Herridge has compiled a document that compares the dates of FBI agents’ reports on Trump’s “Russiagate” with those in the press. This document reveals prima facie evidence that the FBI has long ceased to be a law enforcement agency. In fact, this organization acts as a political operator, as a branch of the Democrat Party for covert and intelligence operations. Therefore, it can be deemed confirmed that the deliberate leakage of information to the press was a significant component in the leftists’ media strategy. Thus, the FBI has developed into a state political police, headed by a group of political activists.
Twenty years after 9/11, the disconcerting thought that somewhere I had already seen a whole lot of this did not escape me. However, I could not remember exactly where. Then, suddenly, I grasped the reason for this political déjà vu: the American intelligence institutions began emulating many of the standard techniques of Soviet intelligence. (From this perspective, the “Russiagate” was a giant Freudian slip). In addition, the Democratic National Committee started resembling the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In other words, it felt like the USSR all over again, where the country became occupied by self-appointed neo-aristocrats.
Joseph Stalin, meanwhile, rejoices in hell—graduates of Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale have transformed into his followers. These Ivy League alumni are gradually shifting from Menshevik methods of influencing the masses into Bolshevik ones.
POST-9/11 BLUNDERS
America’s response to 9/11 serves as a vivid illustration of the ideological polarization of society. The right-wingers in America and the left-wingers in America, after a brief hesitation, ultimately took, as expected, directly opposite positions.
For clarity, let us list who the right-wingers in America are: conservatives, partly libertarians, and partly republicans. (Note that the modern Republican party is a conglomerate of villainized conservatives and Vichy Republicans.) The leftists in America, meanwhile, are hiding behind various names: Democrats (partially), Socialists, Democratic Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats, Maoists, Trotskyists, Fascists, Greens, and National Socialists. As Margaret Thatcher once observed, “Socialists have always spent much of their time seeking new titles for their beliefs because the old versions so quickly become outdated and discredited.”
In the first months after the tragedy of 9/11, American society was united under the conservative flags. By Christmas of 2001, however, political winds scattered people. The American right-wingers resumed the day-to-day affairs, while the leftists set up a new Washington DHS bureaucracy and their campaign to “democratize” Afghanistan. They spent hundreds of billions of dollars on both. Still, as a result, another anti-record was shattered—the level of influence of the bureaucracy in Washington increased substantially. By contrast, the degree of democracy in Afghanistan—even before the fall of Kabul—changed little.
The level of indifference and incompetence over Afghanistan witnessed over the past couple of weeks by the Biden administration is staggering. However, this—probably the most strategic humiliation that any dominant power has ever experienced—was plotted long before Biden’s move to the White House. America’s defeat has been preparing since around the time the future head of the CIA, John Brennan, voted in the 1976 presidential election. Then, he supported the die-hard Stalinist and Communist Party candidate Gus Hall.
A month and a half before the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, the American intelligence community announced Kabul would be threatened in at least a year and a half. Four days before the fall of Kabul, intelligence predicted that Kabul could fall in 90 days. The surreal, shambolic forecasts of the American intelligence community are a consequence of endemic ineptitude.
Under President Biden’s command, the military began pulling from Afghanistan, abandoning American citizens, Afghan aids, equipment, machinery, weapons, ammunition, and NATO allies. The unfettered chaos at Kabul airport resulted from canceling former President Trump’s program for swift and safe evacuations of Americans out of crisis zones just two months before the fall of Kabul. In addition, American counter-intelligence left behind the biometric database of all Afghans who worked for the United States. As a result, the clueless American intelligence community has contributed to the most significant and most preventable foreign policy humiliation in American history.
This staggering incompetence of the American intelligence hierarchy is based on Washington, DC, fantasists’ leftist ideology, who emulate the Kremlin dreamers who had sunk into oblivion.
NEW DEPTHS OF OFFICIALDOM’S ABSURDITY
With the arrival of President Biden, the left endorsed a novel target—”domestic terrorism.” Any encroachment or even a hint of encroachment on the status quo evokes a sharp and angry reaction. Again, the parallels with the current situation in Russia, Belarus, China, Cuba, and North Korea are unambiguous here. These countries are well known for their hatred of the dissenting intellect, and the United States has joined them.
As an archetypical moth-eaten marionette of the left, the President maintains that “white supremacists” have replaced Islamists as the “most lethal terrorist threat” to the United States. The reorientation of the American intelligence agencies from external to “domestic” terrorists has become government policy. The list includes dissidents, nonconformists, and critics of the regime—they include all of them in the column of “violent domestic extremists.” Currently, there are about 2 million American citizens on the list. As an epitome of incompetence, the list was published online and taken down after three weeks.
To this end, President Biden proposed inspiring an American version of Soviet and Nazi stool pigeons. The goal is to report the “unreliable” neighbors, family members, and coworkers to American intelligence agencies. In order to get on the list of “unreliable,” you no longer need to actively plot violence against America and its people—it is enough to disobey the current censorship predicate or express doubts about the Democrat party’s general line on any issue, such as the effectiveness of coronavirus vaccines.
By the end of the second Obama/Biden term, the American intelligence community had been transformed. Currently, they resemble thoroughly corrupt political paramilitaries, targeting those American citizens suspected of political opposition to the American left. For example, General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and director of the CIA, advocates exile political opposition to forced vaccination to Afghanistan.
Stalin, Putin, and Xi are not without reason proud of what the American left has achieved. In particular, the center of gravity of American problems has shifted from Moscow and Beijing to Washington, DC. From now on, Russia and China will continue playing by no means ceremonial roles. However, they can open the champagne by now—they have never had such an impressive contingent of their ideological supporters inside the American intelligence community.
Traditionally, the leftists have known they have been in opposition to the American intelligence institutions. So they used the well-known advice of Soviet communist apparatchiks: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it yourself.”
The current occupant of the White House stands as vivid proof of this transformation. For example, back when Trump began working for the FBI, Senator Biden waged an uncompromising struggle against nominating William Casey as Director of the CIA during the Reagan administration. The stumbling block was Casey’s desire to lift restrictions on covert operations against American citizens imposed by Congress after the Watergate scandal.
Forty years later, as president, Joe Biden is now leading a movement to spy on American citizens.
After President Biden’s move to the White House, the left maintains a clear advantage. That follows because none of the rank-and-file agents have resigned or taken dirty linen in public despite plenty of scandals. Instead, it looks like they have taken an oath not to their country but their pension. That is understandable. What is not clear is—for how long will insouciant American citizens continue funding America’s plunge into madness? Why did we miss the moment when the CIA, FBI, and several other intelligence organizations in America developed into Stasi 2.0?
America’s intelligence institutions have always represented a microcosm of society. However, it is known that the conspiratorial clique does not tolerate any oversight. Moreover, Washington swamp dwellers always exonerate themselves. So, to bring intel back, we must detoxify the entire society of the ideological virus.
Commissars of the ruling class, adherents of the leftist ideology, are in charge of American intelligence. Nevertheless, they command an army of many thousands of ordinary intelligence officers who, to a large degree, do not embrace the leftist ideology. The ideological face-off between the left-wing ruling minority and the majority of the right-wing rank-and-file agents is the engine of the revolution of the American intelligence community.
This article is part of a Human Events Opinion Special Collection released September 11th, 2021: “9/11: A Twenty Year Retrospective.”
