James Mattis - Former Marine?

James Mattis [Former Marine]

In a highly appropriate open letter to James Mattis, 

John Dowd [a real Marine] chastises Mattis  
for his obeisance to the Left.

As we learned during our Military service, sometimes 

generals aren't worth the smoke they blow, and 
deserve to be reduced in grade to Private-E2.  

Mattis is more than a disappointment. 

It appears he has become a communist.

OPEN LETTER TO James Mattis 

[from John Dowd - a proud Marine]

Jim:

I slept on your statement and woke up appalled and upset. You lost me. Never dreamed you would let a bunch of hack politicians use your good name and reputation – earned with the blood and guts of young Marines.

You did what you said you would – engage in this discourse. Marines keep their word.

DC After MLK Riots 1968

The phony protesters near Lafayette park were not peaceful and are not real. They are terrorists using idle hate-filled students to burn and destroy. They were abusing and disrespecting the police when the police were preparing the area for the 1900 curfew. 

Jim, this is the new nihilism. 

Did you forget that President Bush used active duty Marines to quell the riots in LA? 

President Trump has countless cities and some snowflake governors and mayors wetting themselves in the use of force to protect innocent lives and property. 

The AG of Massachusetts thinks burning property is good protest. 

Three more policemen were stabbed and shot in NYC last night.

Think about it. 

Should he be upset about the obvious failure of leadership? 

Where are you Jim?

Marines go to the fight.

No one divided this country more than Obama. 

He abandoned our black brothers and sisters. 
He gave guns to the cartels. 
He  apologized for our precious sacrifice and generosity overseas. 

You remember, Obama fired you.

President Trump has done more to help our minority brothers and sisters in three years than anyone in the last fifty. 

Ask the black pastors. 
Ask the leaders of the black colleges and universities. 
He got them funded. 
Ask them about the prison reform which ended the draconian sentences imposed on young black men by the laws enacted by Biden and his hacks. 

You need to bone up on your homework and stop listening to Uncle Leon.

I understand, you had to stick to the assigned narrative which did not include three years of corrupt investigations and evidence to destroy the President, his office, and his lawful free election. 

Nancy has no tolerance for dissent in the ranks – including those with stars.

You said nothing of the ugly, hate filled, disgraceful comments of Pelosi, Schumer, Perez and other Democrat hacks defaming the President and his office. 

You said nothing of the unlawful sanctuary cities and the unlawful release of hoodlums. 

You said nothing of the resistance movement to paralyze our courts and our government operations. You said nothing of the obstruction and subversion of our immigration laws. 

You said nothing of MS-13 killers and the drug cartels who own huge sections of our major cities.

Jim, do you think that hateful rhetoric and those corrupt actions were inspiring and unifying? 

Do you think the DI's at Parris Island would find such behavior as unifying?

Maybe, your problem, is a lot deeper. 

Trump Ends Soleimani's Reign of Terror

Perhaps you ought to explain how and why you (and John Allen), as CG Central Command, did not engage and take out Iranian Major General Soleimani who roamed the Middle East and wreaked havoc and death of our American boys with his infamous IEDs?

Why did it take President Trump to have the instincts and balls to take him out 

(of course over the objection of the geniuses in the Pentagon)?

Looks like the Persian mullahs were a one horse sleigh and Trump nailed the horse . . . forever. 

It has been quiet ever since. 

Perhaps, your anger is borne of embarrassment for your own failure as the leader of Central Command. 

Did you applaud when the President recognized the central problem in the Middle East? 

Did you applaud the President when he wanted to save American lives by bringing them home in one piece?

[signed]

John M Dowd

USMC

Brennan -- No Credentials

John, now here's what I want you to say next about Trump. 

We offer another guest post by a respected writer with the 

expertise for critical comment.

Charles Faddis is a retired CIA operations and case officer, and 
the author of “Beyond Repair: The Decline And Fall Of The CIA“.

AN OPEN LETTER TO MR. BRENNAN 
By Charles Faddis 
Published in andmagazine.com [July 24, 2018] 

Obama and his CIA Director John Brennan

Dear Mr. Brennan,

I understand that you are a political opponent of the current President of the United States.

I understand that you are an American citizen, and you have the right to freedom of speech.

I encourage you to utilize that right. I encourage you to speak your mind.

I encourage you, as I do all Americans, to be heard.

I implore you, however, to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial critic concerned only with the fate of the republic.

I beg you to stop attempting to portray yourself as some sort of wise, all-knowing intelligence professional with deep knowledge of national security issues and no political inclinations whatsoever.




None of this is true!

You were never a spy.

You were never a case officer.

You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad.

You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence.

You have never been in harm’s way.

You have never heard a shot fired in anger.


You were, for a short while, an intelligence analyst.
In that capacity, it was your job to produce finished intelligence based on basic intelligence provided to you by others.

The work of intelligence analysts is important; however in truth you never truly mastered this trade either. In your capacity as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, while still a junior officer, you were designated to brief the President of the United States who was, at that time, Bill Clinton.

As the presidential briefer, it was your job to read to the President, each morning, finished intelligence, written by others, based on intelligence collected by yet other individuals.
Period.

While serving as presidential briefer, you established a personal relationship with then President Bill Clinton.
End of story.

Everything that has transpired in your professional career since has been based on your personal relationship with the former President, his wife, Hillary, and their key associates.

Your connection to President Obama was, in fact, based on you having established yourself by the time he came to office as a reliable, highly political Democratic Party functionary.

All of your commentary in the public sphere is on behalf of your political patrons. 
It is no more impartial analysis than would be the comments of a paid press spokesman or attorney. You are speaking each and every time directly on behalf of political forces hostile to this President.

You are, in fact, currently on the payroll of both NBC and MSNBC, two of the networks most vocally opposed to President Trump and his agenda.

There is no impartiality in your comments.
Your assessments are not based on some sober judgment of what is best for this nation.
They are based exclusively on what you believe to be in the best interests of the politicians with whom you have long since allied yourself.

It should be noted that not only are you, most decidedly, not apolitical, but that you have been associated during your career with some of the greatest foreign policy disasters in recent American history.

As CIA Director for Barack Obama you:

1) Presided over the Iran nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to escape from decades of containment and set the Middle East on fire.

2) Watched while Russia annexed Crimea and then reestablished itself as a hostile force in the Middle East.

3) Dithered and tinkered with organizational wiring diagrams at CIA Headquarters while China annexed and fortified the entire South China Sea.




The extent to which you are tied directly to the Clintons, Barack Obama and the Democrat Party is clearly evident in the emotional nature of your recent commentary.

Ever since President Trump was elected, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize him and destabilize him. This has been an unprecedented attempt to undermine the stability of the Republic in order to achieve partisan political advantage.

You and your patrons have been complicit in this effort and at its very heart.

Now as the Mueller investigation collapses of its own weight and the extent of this conspiracy is beginning to become clear you are in evident panic.

You should be.

You are free to do as you wish politically.
Stop representing to the American people that there is anything else at play.

You abandoned any hope of being a true intelligence professional decades ago and became a political hack.
Say so!

Meanwhile, Senator Rand Paul’s assessment of you stands:


“John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the Communist Party presidential candidate. He’s now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over-the-top, hyperbolic sort of unhinged director the CIA ever had.”

-----------



Ed Note:
Having served with the CIA as a Case Officer, a guerrilla advisor, and as Regional Intelligence Advisor in Asia (1970-74), and having received, among other forms of recognition, the DCI Exceptional Intelligence Analyst  Award, we feel qualified to add a few comments on Mr Brennan, based on both personal knowledge as well as feedback from colleagues in the CIA, DIA, FBI, DEA, and other IC agencies.

1) Mr Brennan first came to our attention when we observed him as the analyst at CIA's Terrorist Desk, which, at that time, was the lowest and least respected position in the analytical chain. He was then, as now, regarded as a simpleton, but, in that position, no one felt he could do harm.  His co-workers had nothing positive to say about him.  We all assumed he was a protected entity as his incompetence demanded he be fired, much the same as Bob Gates was viewed during his early years at CIA.

2) Dysfunctional and incompetent as an analyst, Brennan was inexplicably bumped up as an assistant briefer at the White House, again, presumably a position in which he could do no harm.

3) Alarm bells began going off when the professional Intelligence Community noticed he was was providing the Print Media opinion pieces on Intelligence - while a member of the Intelligence Community!  This was a first, and an appalling breach of security as well as ethics for any officer still active in the IC.

4) Still, he toadied up to Bill Clinton, who recognized Brennan as a "useful idiot", and potential tool for the future.

5) When W arrived on the scene as the new POTUS, he recognized Brennan  as a very useful tool, particularly in endorsing the bogus 9/11 scenario, pointing fingers at the IC for its failure.  Not mentioned was the fact that the precise details of the attack had surfaced in a police raid in the Philippines as well as by several other elements of the IC -- and all reports were stifled.  But, Brennan was quite willing to toady up to Bush in recounting the official version of the "attack" on the Twin Towers, in spite of the challenges to the story by highly experienced engineers who viewed the destruction of the Twin Towers as a carefully constructed "implosion".

6) And, like Bob Gates, he was well rewarded, and, without operational experience or CIA backing,  Brennan was appointed as the Chief of Station in Saudi Arabia, coordinating with the Saudi Intelligence on US Intelligence, and ignoring the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East.

7) Although young toadies feel Brennan had some credibility, experienced professionals felt that Brennan had been emplaced from Day One by the Deep State to ascend to the highest level of the CIA in order to bolster as "Intelligence Community Fact" whatever nonsense was proposed by other IC leaders.  

Notably, both Brennan and Clapper became documented perjurers while serving in their appointive positions. 

We understand both their names are on several of the 50,000+ sealed indictments which will be served up in September.  

We trust they will be comfortable in their Gitmo cells.

Olympic Stupidity

Click here for related story 
NY Times: Rebecca Ruiz/Tariq Panja

Russia’s Olympic team has been barred from the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The country’s government officials are forbidden to attend, its flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and its anthem will not sound.

"Any athletes from Russia who receive special dispensation to compete will do so as individuals wearing a neutral uniform, and the official record books will forever show that Russia won zero medals."

Oddly, the IOC is now joining the anti-Russia movement by suddenly discovering that Russian athletes have been using performance enhancing drugs. 

So, the IOC bars ALL the athletes vs simply conducting standard testing to disqualify using athletes?

"Keep your Friends close; your Enemies closer!"

We are not a fan of Russia, having been engaged in the Cold War for decades; Russia falls into the category of "Potential Adversary", [a term we coined in 1976 training the Army National Guard] along with China, Syria, Iran, and North Korea -- all of which are potentially guilty of doping their athletes to enhance their performances.

However, we are intimately familiar with the horror of having President Jimmy Carter stupidly block US athletes from competing in the 1980 Olympics because Russia had invaded Afghanistan.

This singularly stupid action of Carter's ideological grandstanding destroyed the careers of countless young athletes.

The Olympic Games were created a few thousand years ago as a diplomatic process by which enemies could all participate in a colloquial setting even though they hated each others' guts and would, in other circumstances, have killed each other.

However, the Games allowed for a temporary truce where adversaries could enjoy athletic competition and perhaps resolve a few differences.


This worked quite well until the last half century when greed became the dominant philosophical trend in the Olympic Committee,

Reform should originate at the International Olympic Committee level, and we have to assume it is replete with Swamp vermin who need to be removed so we can enjoy watching young athletes perform, no matter what the political persuasion/ orientation, or philosophy of their leaders.

HillaryGate Redux!

Former Prosecutor Giuliani advises he could convict Hillary on at least eight counts

Back in our Spook days in the 1980s, we ran some highly productive operations for which we received kudos from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and, privately from Senators Goldwater and Helms -- and also from former Director of Central Intelligence Vernon Walters.

However, we [in the newly formed (1983)] Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) continued to fend off attempts by CIA executives to undermine our operations, and to seize our newly recruited access agents.

This competition was long standing, and CIA had always been the bullyish [though incompetent] "older brother" to Military Intelligence over the years, seizing "operational control" (OpCon) of our best recruited assets.  Since the Director of CIA was also the Director of Central Intelligence, we routinely lost administrative battles for "OpCon"; which led to all the Military Clandestine Services joining together in 1983 to form the DCS with the power, unlimited resources, and budget of the Department of Defense providing and guarding our independence.

Still, the CIA was engaged in numerous Black Operations which managed illegal drug and arms operations which included the Iran-Contra fiasco and alliances with drug cartels (see Tom Clancy's "Clear And Present Danger").

Basically, the CIA in that era was filled with former ATF/DEA agents, highway patrol and street cops, who filled the Agency's Directorate of Operations stations around the world after the Agency's career case officers were purged by Stansfield Turner under Carter; these inexperienced operatives still thought and acted like cops managing low level snitches.  Some had brief military and spook training at The Farm, but many had no Military experience or Intelligence background, leading to many a headline grabbing SNAFU.

In one operation, we had recruited a fellow who was positioned in the inner circle of a foreign leader whom the US had tagged as a major threat to the United States.  We were quite pleased with this operation, particularly since it would open doors to not only information on sponsored terrorist operations worldwide, but, it tied directly to international arms and narcotic deals supporting "narcotics-traffickers" support for guerrilla groups trying to overthrow legitimate governments in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

But, on this particular asset, we hadn't counted on CIA opposition, which sought OpCon of this asset.  We had debriefed this asset outside the US since he had a US criminal record, and also because the Department of Justice maintained an open warrant for his arrest.

You may ask why we are giving you this history lesson here?  Why now?
Be patient, it will become more clear below.

To our surprise, our asset had been  [illegally] contacted and lured into the US with a promise of immunity by the CIA; and, upon his arrival, was arrested and turned over to a US Attorney for prosecution, trial, conviction, and incarceration in a federal prison where only the CIA had access.

[We learned later he had the goods on CIA involvement with drug cartels, and, mysteriously, he had been murdered in prison.]

We met with the Assistant Attorney General, who routinely reviewed -- and blessed- our operations conducted on US soil.  Our pleas to intercede and release this asset with the recalcitrant US Attorney were met with a sigh and  resignation since the Assistant Attorney General of the US advised that neither he nor the Attorney General himself could override, or even influence a US Attorney's prosecution according to the rules within DOJ.

In short, he could not interfere with a case brought by any US Attorney -- a measure to prevent political interference or intervention in a federal criminal case - an issue which bewildered us as we could not imagine such high level corruption in US politics.

Here's the grist of the story:
We were outraged that even the Attorney General himself could not override a lowly federal prosecutor -- and until this moment, with the HillaryGate, we could not appreciate the value of this restriction.  But, we'll pursue this issue below.

Now, all this is background information for the point we'll make today regarding the DOJ/FBI scandal involving the "investigation" of Hillary Clinton's Money Laundering operations and national security violations.

Former Bridgwater General Counsel -
serving the Clinton Foundation

Recently, [28OCT2016] FBI Director Comey announced to the House Oversight Committee that the investigation into Hillary's illegal activities was being reopened

-- after he had earlier testified to Congress that, in spite of a plethora of evidence indicating that Hillary had violated a number of national security regulations,
and that she had perjured herself,
and that she had clearly obstructed justice,

he advised Congressman Gowdy that he lacked sufficient evidence to proceed with the investigation.


Comey's change of heart to reopen the Hillary investigation, of course, raised the pucker factor among Hillary's immediate staff,  Hillary's State Department aides, and particularly Anthony Weiner, whose computer magically had all of Huma's emails on it, even those containing highly classified Intelligence information, to include eight classified at Top Secret or above [i.e., compartmented].

We presume that Huma, a bright young lady whose family currently plays a major role in the Muslim Brotherhood and Sisterhood, anticipated that such terrorist linkage might eventually bring her under prosecution by the Feds -- particularly if Trump were to win, so she moved her files onto her hubby's computer for safekeeping and a possible "Get-Out-of-Jail-Free"  card for turning "States' Evidence" should Hillary throw her under the bus [an event which we gauge as imminent].

Comey's faux FBI investigation of Hillary succeeded in neutering the investigation.

His strategy included using hand-picked, non-career appointed "agents", and was sufficient to derail the legitimate investigation with the official [albeit illegal] destruction of evidence, and granting of blanket immunity to potential witnesses -- even though these aides/witnesses were clearly guilty of major criminal/felony offenses; their grants of immunity included no valuable testimony, but merely protected them from further investigation -- or prosecution.

Comey, of course, has been in Hillary's pocket for years through his employment as General Counsel for Bridgewater, the most powerful international financial management firms you've never heard of, but, which has interesting ties to the Clinton Foundation and processing/managing billions of dollars in foreign "donations", Sovereign Wealth, Pension AND Central Bank Funds.

Comey's Deputy Director, Andrew McCabe, is unclean as well since his wife, Jill, was the recipient of Clinton Foundation largesse of nearly three quarters of a million dollars to fund her "instant candidacy" for Congress - displacing the existing Democrat candidate -- a retired Military officer of considerable accomplishment, and dare we say it - integrity, who had made it through the Primary selection/vetting process by actual voters.

But wait, the plot thickens, as we note Deputy FBI Director McCabe headed up the investigation into Hillary's national security violations
[i.e., illegal handling of extremely sensitive Intelligence information and, most egregious, operational data on Top Secret "Sources and Methods" which endangered hundreds of operational assets, support networks, and US case officers/Agent Handlers -- and ultimately cost the life of an Iranian engineer whom the CIA recruited to report on the Iranian nuclear weapons program.]

We can't be sure of how many other recruited assets were outed by Hillary's negligence, but we can reasonably assume there were many.

Now, no one in DOJ or the FBI hierarchy felt it necessary to force McCabe to recuse himself from this investigation into Hillary's criminal activities in view of the Clinton donation of nearly $1 Million to McCabe's wife's illegal political campaign.

And, Comey and McCabe clearly thought they had adequately derailed the Hillary investigation and were certain they themselves would never be charged with or prosecuted for obstruction of justice or destruction of evidence, or conspiracy for all their misdeeds.

But, then neither had counted on a rebellion within the ranks of career FBI agents and analysts -- which then led to leaks to a federal attorney whose ethics [and perhaps political ambitions] were/are unrestrained.

The FBI agents continued their investigation into the criminal activities of Anthony Weiner, Huma Abadin's derelict husband whose penchant for photographing and distributing photos of his private parts via social media to a variety of audiences, including non-adult girls had promoted him to celebrity -- and criminal status a while back.

And PRESTO, the agents "discovered" Weiner's computer on which resided Huma's entire stock of emails, many of which were between her and Hillary, or Obama, or Jarrett, or foreign agents, or Hillary's "donors".

We surmise the NYPD had earlier searched Weiner's computer, discovered these records, and passed them over to their friends at the FBI for subsequent investigation, knowing that the De Blasio Administration would not allow prosecution of a Democrat "sacred cow".

The FBI agents, witnessing the destruction of other evidence [e.g., computers and servers belonging to Hillary, her aides, Huma, and Hillary's inner circle], apparently decided to hold on to Weiner's computer as evidence "unrelated" to the Hillary investigation.

We assume that the contents have been downloaded and "star-fished" [i.e., providing evidence to many disclosure outlets in the event of the whistle-blower's 'death'] to guard against another evidence destruction binge by Comey.

But, the FBI agents couldn't mount a prosecution of Huma or Hillary on their own, so, it appears they contacted one of the few remaining federal attorneys with any degree of integrity in the Department of Justice.

US Attorney Preet Bharara 

Preet Bharara is the US Attorney in the Southern District of New York and has great success in investigating and prosecuting Wall Street/Hedge Fund executives for financial fraud.  To date, Bharara's Sikh heritage of duty and honor has kept him apart from internal DOJ corruption, making him one of the most respected, and effective federal attorneys in the US Justice system.

So, here's the twist.

As we noted above in our rather lengthy [but hopefully not boring] background discussion of the DOJ's administrative structure, we identified the restrictions in the Department of Justice in which a US Attorney cannot be manipulated or over-ruled by either the Director of DOJ or the Director of FBI.

In fact, this particular US Attorney has the legal power to extend his investigation into the illegal activities of the executives of the DOJ and the FBI [and the Oval Office] since they are linked to the money laundering operations (RICO Violations) of the Clinton Foundation.  We can assume that FBI agents, as well as NSA operatives will provide  [or perhaps already have] piles of precise evidence they have gathered while waiting for a prosecutor they can trust.

What might be coming down the road are multiple indictments for Hillary's and Obama's staffs, and for Hillary and Obama themselves.

In these cases, there will be no immunity granted, since the witnesses themselves will be indicted -- and prosecuted.

Weiner will be on top of the heap, providing as much insider information as he possibly can, to not only stay out of jail, but to protect himself from Hillary's Hit Squad, which has eliminated at least five witnesses against Hillary since May.

Huma: has evidence to convict Hillary of Treason

Next up is Huma, whom we can assume will be rolled under the bus by Hillary since she has the goods on Hillary for all the "Pay to Play" donations to Hillary while she was Secretary of State.

Huma will turn State's Evidence against Hillary in a heartbeat recognizing she could be prosecuted and sentenced to death for Treason.
[Huma's lawyers are currently in discussions with FBI agents.]

A $20 million dollar bribe from the Clinton Foundation would not a good substitute for execution for Treason by firing squad.

Mills will look nice in orange

And, we have Cheryl Mills, who has maintained a low profile, but is ripe for prosecution for Collusion, Conspiracy, Obstruction of Justice, and Destruction of Evidence, among other charges.

We figure she's already spilling her guts to a bona fide FBI agent as we speak since she doesn't want to chance a post-Trump win with consequent prosecution.

Then we have Hillary and Obama themselves, who are wide open for criminal charges, up to and including Treason.
[Both now have purchased properties in countries with which the US has no extradition treaties.]

Obama laughed off Impeachment threats a while back after he sent his thugs around to threaten the families of senators and Congresspersons -- and of senior Military officers.  And the threats of Impeachment disappeared, as did the group of Military officers who went to the Navy Yard in Washington, DC, a while back to present him with charges of Treason -- offering him the opportunity to resign.
[They presumed Obama would act with the dignity of Richard Nixon, but were unfamiliar with Chicago political thuggery.]

Oddly, the meeting date coincided with an assault on the Navy Yard by a "crazed DOD contractor" who smuggled past a gauntlet of security guards a bag containing pistols, automatic weapons, and shotguns.  Interestingly, this shooter was a religious bus-boy in a Texas roadside cafe -- converted to a crazed Defense contractor with a Top Secret security clearance conning his way into one of the most secure Intelligence facilities in the country.  Imagine that!

And, even more oddly, this crazed busboy morphed into multiple shooters of varying ages [early 20s to mid-40s], heights [5'6" - 6'4"] and builds [muscular skinny to plump], complexions [light skinned to very dark] and attire [military uniforms (dark blue or khaki), or casual civilian clothes], firing shotguns, pistols, and automatic weapons]; and miraculously, all the shooters ended up in a single corpse -- that of the "crazed contractor/bus boy".  The body bags containing the corpses of the Military officers were removed after the news crews departed.

So, ridding the country of a corrupt and treasonous President in a discreet and honorable manner met with disaster, serving as a warning to others more faint of heart.

And after years of criticism and suspicion  of this Administration and of Hillary by Conservatives, the Intelligence, and the Military Communities [but protected by the Press], it appears that a very minor cog in this wheel of corruption, Anthony Weiner, will bring down this House of Cards.

[Hillary's cabal (including the George W Bush camp) is attempting to block this process by saying there was no warrant.  However,
1.  The NYPD already determined probable cause, based on Weiner's use of the internet to solicit an under age girl;
2. The FBI, in turn, investigated on the basis that Weiner's criminal activity crossed state lines, giving them jurisdiction over an "interstate criminal offense";
3. Which, in turn, led to their investigation and "discovery" of "national security violations" which provided "probable cause" to review the entire computer file.
4. Bill Clinton's old defense of "It depends on what the meaning of IS is" won't fly here.
5. And, unfortunately, Hillary demanded before a national TV audience that Comey present his evidence to the nation.

As the old warning goes
"Be careful what you ask for; you might get it!"

The Most Plausible Explanation For The 10 Riverine Sailors Captured By Iran

Riverine Crew as guests of the Iranian Navy

We are pleased to publish this analysis of the Iranian Navy's capture of 

US sailors by our irascible old friend and fellow Administration critic and 

malcontent, Tom Lipscomb.  Tom is most notable for his excellent reporting, 
but of late,  for being banned from FaceBook for his frequent irreverent 
and politically-incorrect commentary which was offensive to many on 
an equal opportunity level.

Click here for original story [American Thinker]

I have heard separately from two experts, both high ranking Marines, one on active duty and the other working in DC at a foundation, the following.
 When I pressed them on the Fars News Service statement from Iran that the 10 personnel captured on the two US vessels were all Marines, they countered:

No, they are part of a Rivierine Squadron based in San Diego. Further they are support crews for SEAL missions from the US Navy and highly trained. The Iranians probably mistook “Riverine” for “Marine” in doing the story.

So that explains several things. 

Why the captured sailors were so much more fit than the average sailor these days, and how a woman could be among them. While not Special Ops personnel directly engaged, they have to be extraordinarily fit and well-trained, as indeed these sailors appear to be.

It also raises the question as to whether they had been on a mission ferrying SEALS somewhere. 
One must understand that small craft “belly bumping” has been going on all over the Gulf for decades. 

There are Standard Operating Procedures [SOP] for numerous levels of possible engagement, including being swarmed and overcome. 

They don’t have to include vainglorious responses like getting all your people killed resisting being taken prisoner by other ships with more firepower.



The young Lieutenant commanding the mission, covered in this Chicago Tribune story appeared totally composed in making that statement of  “confession,”  probably because that was exactly the statement he was supposed to make, according to one of those SOPs at Fifth Fleet that had been set up for the alternative scenarios.
 

So any notion that malfeasance by the officers and crews of these two vessels is most unlikely. 



Also unlikely is any notion that with the multiple communications channels of Special Ops vessels and multiple navigation aids anyone on board them got lost, was without communications, or drifted while doing repairs anywhere near the Fars Islands. 

Washington Post

Look at a map. 

The course from Bahrain to Kuwait is not only direct, it is almost directly N-S and given the shallow draft capability of these vessels, both boats could have proceeded with the Arabian coast in sight the entire time.



So how did they get more than 70 miles and 90 degrees off their course, (some “short cut”) which at their speeds of more than 40 mph would have taken over an hour one way, and fall into the 12 mile limit of the Farsi Islands claimed by Iran?



In short, they didn’t.



Fifth Fleet knew exactly where they were at all times, just as it knows exactly where all the other NATO vessels, which practically pave the Persian Gulf these days are. And they had the option to back them up with air and sea power if they were allowed to.



If the American people were not suffering from an incompetent and incurious press and media, some of these discrepancies would have come to light and been subject to public debate. 

One would think the questions remaining over what are now the clear lies about Benghazi would excite some editorial interest.



The explanations pouring out of Obama’s lying Administration spokespersons from the Secretary of Defense to the Secretary of State simply do not stand the light of day. 

In fact they insult the intelligence of any knowledgeable citizen with military experience.

But one thing is clear. Secretary of State Kerry was a much better liar about his small boat riverine actions in Vietnam than he is in explaining what was going on with our riverine sailors in the Persian Gulf.

SpookdBlog Editorial Note:

Donning our Tin Foil Conspiracy Cap, which has been consistently accurate on all things Benghazi, we'll speculate that this highly publicized capture of US sailors by the Iranian Navy, without a visible reaction from nearby US Naval vessels from the Sixth Fleet, was staged, much the same as the attack on the Benghazi Consulate was staged to capture the US Ambassador and trade him for the Blind Sheik.

Wc make this allegation based on the series of covert attempts by this Administration to resurrect positive relations with Iran.  Keep in mind Obama's persistent efforts to befriend Iran, which included the now infamous "nuclear deal", the secret meetings in Muscat in 2013 -- which followed 19 months of negotiations among the six major world powers and Iran, leading to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed on 14 July 2015.  

We also have noted the large number of Iranians [and Muslim Brotherhood members] in this Administration, to include Huma Abedin [Hillary's closest advisor] linked to the Muslim Brotherhood/Sisterhood [interestingly, all references to her linkage to Iran and to the Muslim  Brotherhood appear to have been purged from the Internet]; and, of course, Valerie Bowman Jarrett [Obama's puppeteer], born in Shiraz, Iran.   We somehow think these folks might have influenced Oval Office decisions to embrace Iran.

And, last but not least, we recall Hillary's role, in which she visited Egypt with Huma, and set off riots and protests against her linkage, via Huma, with the Muslim Brotherhood.  However, the most interesting link in this puzzle is Hillary's "covert" flight to western Iran in late 2012, reportedly to meet with President Ahmadinijad in Ahvaz and Ayatollah ali Khamenei to discuss Iran's nuclear program.  As in all poorly planned operations, Hillary's plane crashed, killing her SEAL escort [listed as a suicide in Afghanistan].  While she recovered in a MidEast hospital, her cover story was that she had the flu, fell, and had a concussion.  She was later spirited into a US hospital and with great fanfare, released with her "double" making PhotoOp appearances for show.

Bottom line:  We believe the capture of the US sailors was a staged event to enable the Administration to lift the sanctions on Iran and return the $1.4 Billion in seized Iranian assets.  We'll report more as this tale unfolds.

See also: Calling BS on the official story of the Iranian capture of two US riverine boats