Posted on 09/23/2020 11:39:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
FOUR paramilitary CIA officers drowned while on a secret mission to plant an underwater pod intended to track the Chinese military in the South China Sea, it has emerged.
The men were reportedly caught in a tropical storm while attempting to place the device, which had been disguised to resemble a rock, off the Philippine island of Luzon.
The South China Sea is one of the world's most important shipping routs, and control over parts of it has long been contested between China, the US, and numerous other countries.
The 2008 mission came five years before China began constructing artifical islands in the region to serve as military outposts, the cause of a recent escalation in tensions with the US.
It was to be completed by two CIA agents, named as Stephen Stanek and Michael Perich, both practised scuba divers, Yahoo News reported.
Group leader Stanek was an operative with the CIA's paramilitary special activities centre, and had previously served as a navy ordnance disposal diver.
Perich was a recent graduate from the US Merchant Marine Academy and had been recruited to the agency as a paramilitary operative.
Supporting the mission from a 40-foot vessel were Jamie McCormick and Daniel Meeks.
The group were supposed to plant the pod and head to Japan before collecting it after a number of weeks.
The pod had been designed to detect and record signals from Chinese warships and other craft.
The mission had no officials link to the American government, and was planned so that it would be deniable in the event the group was found and detained.
The group were carrying false papers to back up a story that they had been hired by somebody to take their vessel from Malaysia to Japan.
(Excerpt) Read more at thesun.co.uk ...
Hey, this sounds a little like Jack Moore’s Castro story!
Why do the have to broadcast the mission?
Now the Chinese will be watching for the replacement team.
Maybe it was leaked to find a leaker.
It happened in 2008. It was designed to run the same day Trump spoke at the UN earlier this week.
My first thought. WTH leaked this?
For several reasons, possibly. Reason 1, to let the chinese know that we know everything they do in the SCS, as a deterrent to them starting trouble in the region. Reason 2, the technology talked about is now obsolete and has been replaced by better technology. Reason 3, maybe the chinese navy will waste a lot of money and time looking for eavesdropping equipment disguised as rocks or something else.
There could be a lot of other reasons too, these are just a few, and besides it happened in 2008 (supposedly) so knowing this is not really of much value to the chinse anymore. Besides we have better systems now that do that kind of eavesdropping, and more.
It could also be setting the stage for Trump to start clearing house at the intel agencies in his second term. Tales of past incompetence always make that task easier.
And why is this being released to the public with all these details? And why at this time?
Sounds like those fake rocks used for hiding keys.
"The name "Higos" is the Chamorro word for fig."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Higos_(2008)
Sounds like a bad Get Smart script....
Who is responsible for this leak?
**************
Prolly one of Obama’s people. Several obvious possibilities.
“The mission had no officials link to the American government, and was planned so that it would be deniable in the event the group was found and detained.”
Whelp! So much for that cover story! I see that it’s Sun.UK who got fed the info. How has a pipeline to them?
Who, not ‘how’.
The Chinese will be turning over rocks on the shore lines for years to come.
To make CHINA appear to be both the "villan" and "culpable" in the eyes of the American public.
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