Free Republic

An early Soviet active measures campaign took on a life of its own and survived the collapse of the USSR. It provided the philosophical and strategic bases for a cultural Marxist revolution so profound that it penetrated the cores of the CIA and FBI. That is one of the startling findings of scholar J. Michael Waller in his new book, Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went from Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villains. Published today [January 16] by Regnery, Big Intel shows how the intelligence community failed to defend the United States against a decades-old Soviet covert...

This week, my daughter drove me down to Virginia to a book signing. It was hosted by the American Legion Post 250 and organized by former Deputy CIA Director Mike Morell for former CIA Director General David Petraeus. It was well worth the pilgrimage to little Middleburg, VA. Over 200 people were in attendance, and they were perhaps the friendliest crowd I’ve ever met. We were lucky enough to have a few minutes with Mike Morell, and I found him to be a very nice guy in person. The same is true for his wife and all the people who...

This is a way underreported story. It was Antony Blinken, the limp wristed Secretary of State who bends over for all US adversaries while calling it a success, who reached out to ex-CIA Director Mike Morrell to cobble together a group of "intelligence experts" who would sign a false statement calling the Hunter Biden laptop "Russian disinformation" so Biden could use it a hammer to pound Donald Trump in their debate. Morrell was eager to help. After all, he was motivated to do so. Financially motivated. In 2017 the thinktank Atlantic Council signed an agreement with Burisma despite knowing it...

The war in Ukraine is at a stalemate, but that doesn’t mean it’s not changing. General David Petraeus predicts the war will look different this year with significant offensives likely staged by the two sides. Bergen: Who’s winning the war? Petraeus: It is not Russia. Russia has, after all, lost the Battles of Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv; failed to take the rest of Ukraine’s southern coast (not even getting through Mykolaiv, much less to the major port at Odesa). It has lost what it had gained in Kharkiv province. And it has had to withdraw its only forces west...

David Petraeus is the real Pope of counter-insurgency and if he decides that he needs more troops and more time and more resources in Afghanistan next year, who is going to be able to gainsay him? That's Thomas P. Barnett's shrewd assessment. Obama's pledge to start withdrawing troops in 2011 is now kaput... It really is Vietnam -- along with the crazier and crazier rationales for continuing it. But it is now re-starting in earnest ten years in, dwarfing Vietnam in scope and longevity. One suspects there is simply no stopping this war machine, just as there is no stopping...

Former CIA Director and retired U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus said in a new interview that Russia can still inflict destruction upon Ukraine, but Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot reverse Ukrainian gains in the four regions Moscow recently annexed. “I think he’s literally out of moves,” Petraeus told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.

How the Pentagon’s top-brass generals burned the careers of subordinates but then pivoted to lucrative careers all while losing the wars they were supposed to be winning. My new book, A Few Bad Men, details the mendacity and mad dishonesty of retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. The fact that it was written by a Marine once under his command, whom he betrayed for the sake of politics and getting to slap on another star, says volumes about this once-lionized figure. It all goes back to an incident in Afghanistan in 2007, and the Court of Inquiry trial of...

Axel Springer’s business is divided into three segments: paid models, marketing models, and classified ad models. Since 2020, it is majority-owned by the US private equity firm KKR. KKR names former CIA head Petraeus as chairman of new institute. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kkr-petraeus-idUSBRE94T0D820130530 Private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co KKR.N said it appointed former CIA Director David Petraeus as chairman of the newly created KKR Global Institute, which will study the investment implications of global macroeconomic, social and geopolitical issues. Petraeus was credited with helping pull Iraq from the brink of an all-out civil war as commander there and President Barack...

Russia may launch an attack on Ukraine on Saturday, February 19, 2022. The attack would likely begin with an air and missile campaign targeting much of Ukraine to decapitate the government and degrade the Ukrainian military as well as the ability of Ukrainian citizens to prepare to resist a subsequent Russian invasion. US and allied governments have been warning of such an attack for some days, pointing to the size of the Russian forces concentrated on Ukraine’s borders.[1] Western officials have additionally said that Russian troops have moved to jumping-off positions for an invasion over the past 24 hours. The...

“Therefore, for the sake of our diplomatic effort to resolve this crisis, we believe it is vital to restore Iran’s fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force against it by the United States,” the letter signed by Leon Panetta and David Petraeus read. Al Arabiya English reports now that Two former CIA directors and a handful of former senior US officials urged President Joe Biden to “restore Iran’s fear that its current nuclear path will trigger the use of force,” in a letter published Friday. “Diplomacy appears to be moving backward,” the letter read on...

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who led U.S. forces in Afghanistan under the Obama administration, said on Monday the outcome of the war there is “catastrophic,” after the Taliban took control of the capital city of Kabul. Petraeus, when asked by NBC’s Lester Holt if the U.S. just lost the war in Afghanistan, said the situation unfolding in the region is “heartbreaking” and “tragic.” “I do think there were alternative approaches, options that we in fact should have considered. I've counseled those for many years,” continued Petraeus, who also previously served as the director of the CIA and the commander of...

Iraq’s new prime minister has promoted a general who played a major role in crushing ISIS and who is also widely seen as a counterweight to Iranian influence. Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi has been named commander of Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service, which took heavy casualties during the fight for Mosul, according to the Associated Press. Al-Saadi previously served as deputy commander for the counterterrorism force, which was trained and equipped by the U.S. military. The Counter-Terrorism Service is considered the best disciplined and least sectarian element of Iraq’s military and police force. As such, it is a bulwark against Iran,...

Former General David Petraeus described President Donald Trump’s decision to eliminate Iranian General Qasem Suleimani in Baghdad as the most significant action against terrorism in the Middle East. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this particular action. It is more significant than the killing of Osama bin Laden or even the death of [Islamic State leader Abu Bakr] al-Baghdadi,” he said in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine. Petraeus said President Trump had effectively reestablished the idea any Iranian attack against American targets would be met with considerable force. “This is the most formidable adversary that we have...

The United States is sending nearly 3,000 additional troops to the Middle East from the 82nd Airborne Division as a precaution amid rising threats to American forces in the region, the Pentagon said on Friday.Iran promised vengeance after a US airstrike in Baghdad on Friday killed Qasem Soleimani, Tehran's most prominent military commander and the architect of its growing influence in the Middle East.The overnight attack, authorized by US President Donald Trump, was a dramatic escalation in the "shadow war" in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies, principally Israel and Saudi Arabia.As former commander of US forces in Iraq and...

Former CIA Director and retired US Army Gen. David Petraeus said on Sunday the United States betrayed its longstanding ally in its fight against ISIS, the Syrian Kurds, by withdrawing US forces from the northern part of the country. Petraeus, who previously oversaw military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, criticized President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria on CNN's "State of The Union." "Well, I think we have abandoned our Syrian Kurdish partners. They took over 10,000 losses as the defeat of Islamic State was carried out," he told CNN's Jake Tapper. "The elimination of the...

In a wide-ranging with Fox News' Brian Kilmeade, former CIA Director David Petraeus praised President Trump's hard line on NATO, claimed the west needs to rethink its North Korea strategy and warned the United States should be "firm, not provocative" with China. The retired four-star general said Trump is hardly the first U.S. president to take NATO to task for spending too little on their own defense and depending on the U.S. to make up the difference. "(Trump) is right to do that," Petraeus said. "He is by no means the first president. I heard President Obama do this publicly...

Washington (AFP) - Former CIA directors and another half dozen of America's most senior spies have issued an unprecedented condemnation of President Donald Trump, after his decision to blacklist their colleague John Brennan. In a statement, ex-CIA bosses appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents -- including Robert Gates, George Tenet, Porter Goss, Leon Panetta and David Petraeus -- denounced Trump's decision to strip Brennan of his security clearance.

Twelve former senior intelligence officials issued a statement late Thursday criticizing President Trump’s “ill-considered and unprecedented” decision to strip former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance.

Today, 21 October 2015 and over the coming days WikiLeaks is releasing documents from one of CIA chief John Brennan's non-government email accounts. Brennan used the account occasionally for several intelligence related projects. John Brennan became the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency in March 2013, replacing General David Petraeus who was forced to step down after becoming embroiled in a classified information mishandling scandal. Brennan was made Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism on the commencement of the Obama presidency in 2009--a position he held until taking up his role as CIA chief. According to the...

A salute is due Adm. William Fallon, who tried to prevent a wider war with Iran. After serving one year as commander of U.S. Central Command, Fallon has resigned, saying he was quitting because his differences with official U.S. policy had become a “distraction.” But there is a widespread perception that he was pushed out by the neo-conservatives among President George W. Bush’s aides, especially Vice President Dick Cheney, because of Fallon’s reluctance to go along with the administration’s hawkish moves toward Iran. Cheney, who took five consecutive draft deferments to stay out of the Vietnam war, does not mind...