Sicario, Films about the Intelligence Community, Sergio Leone

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Spoilers for the movie Sicario (2015) follows.

Most, but not all, of the movies which purport to be about the intelligence community (IC) of this or other countries are clearly fantasies with little basis in reality.  But there are some exceptions which show that the filmmakers cared enough to incorporate elements of the reality of this arcane and overly glamourized world into their creative work.  This is not to say that the more fantastic and unrealistic of these films, say for example the Bond or Bourne films, are not entertaining, they may be more entertaining in fact. But they are not based at all on the realities.

If we were to have an "Intelligence Film Festival" I would nominate Sicario (2015) by Denis Villeneuve to be on the list.  It seems as though the writer and director did know something about this world and used their knowledge to inform the script, at least some of the time.  I am not saying the film is totally realistic but it does have some excellent things going for it.

So what criteria might we use to denote a film that is more realistic than the pure entertainment product in this genre?

1. The different agencies of the US Government have different corporate cultures. We do not know much about the Josh Brolin character, but we do know that he is not FBI by his choice of clothes. It is the first thing that the Emily Blunt character notices about him.

2. When Kate is selected, we discover that the Brolin character does not want someone who is from FBI Narcotics, nor who is a lawyer, nor who has worked cases. We are told that Kate is selected for her "tactical skills" but this is revealed later to be not true. See next point where the real reason becomes clear.

3. The Brolin character never actually admits to being CIA, presumably because if you are covert in the CIA (and only a small number of CIA people are), it is not something you readily admit. But we are left near the end believing that he is CIA because he admits that the real reason he wants Kate around is that the CIA (and presumably Delta Force) are not permitted to operate in the continental United States unless there is someone from a domestic agency attached.

4. Ultimately Kate (and the audience) are told that the reason that the team led by Brolin is doing what it is doing is because they have been authorized by much higher authority. By elected representatives in fact, which presumably means either the POTUS or various parties in Congress or both. This is a key point for those of you who have been fed a diet of intelligence movie conspiracy theories. Generally speaking, the intelligence community is not breaking our law (even if they break some other country's law all the time) and they are acting under orders from a legitimate authority. Generally people blame the CIA when they should be blaming their elected representatives, and/or the National Security Council, and/or the POTUS. Generally speaking.

5. At one point Kate pretty much loses her mind and attacks both Alejandro and Matt but we are never really told why.  My speculation is because these two are killing a lot of foreign nationals without due process and this would be anathema to a law enforcement official.  

6. Why all the mystery about Alejandro? Because Alejandro works for the "competition", e.g. the Columbian drug cartel.  Yes the CIA is well-known for dining with sinners.

Now onto some stylistic issues involving the Benicio del Toro character and this film.  I wondered just why I found this character so appealing when, after all, without going into any detail here, he does some mighty nasty things. In thinking about this, it occurred to me that he fit a model that was not entirely expected and which may not have been intentional on the part of the filmmakers.

These characteristics include having a mysterious and tragic past, of being very good in a gunfight, of speaking very seldom and then cryptically.  He is very secretive about his motivations and his intents. He manages to convince us that while he is cruel, that he may have some worthwhile reasons for his cruelty. Although I am not an expert in such things, he seems very handsome. And of course this all takes place on the border between the US and Mexico and arguably during a time of war.

And while he is successful in some sense of the word, when the film is over he is walking away alone.

Of course the way I have described this, the answer is obvious.  He resembles, at least superficially, the Clint Eastwood character in Sergio Leone films.  Even if this analogy works for you, and it may not, as I have said before, it is not clear that this was the filmmaker's intent.

“Listen. Nothing will make sense to your American ears. And you will doubt everything that we do. But in the end, you will understand.”

Sicario (2015) on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3397884/

Military Rules of Engagement on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_engagement

Bird Dog on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_dog

A Conspiracy Theory about the Panama Papers

What is great about conspiracy theories is that they do not have to be motivated by mere facts. After all, the point of a conspiracy is that a cabal is actively hiding the truth so all right-minded citizens are forced to speculate. Its their own damn fault for lying to us so often, right?

The art of creating a vibrant conspiracy theory is to weave events that are believed to have happened into a narrative that purports to explain why and how it happened. Sometimes events are invented or enhanced to enrich the process. Often bogus analysis and interpretation is required to make a conspiracy theory plausible, except of course it doesn't make it plausible at all, but merely exposes the credulity or borderline insanity of the audience. The best conspiracy theories do not open themselves up to magical thinking, at least not so much.

This post proposes that there is some basis for attributing a lovely conspiracy behind the Panama Papers leak that is causing such havoc in the world today.

And what havoc it is creating! We have one prime minister resigned already, and red faces in many parts of the world. That stalwart upholder of freedom and truth, the People's Republic of China, is madly trying to suppress the information that reveals so many Chinese in the government had these off-shore accounts. Russia is even saying that this is all a plot to besmirch Putin.

So without further ado, here is my take on the events, starting many years ago.

In part one of the story, various intelligence agencies of the West, possibly on their own or in cooperation with the intelligence agencies of other allied countries, run operations against aspects of the banking and legal infrastructure of off-shore accounts. They do this in order to try and identify and compromise the activities of other countries that use such accounts for their own covert activities including the financing of terrorist activities, arms purchases, and other operations. Thus, law firms such as the now famous, or infamous, Mossack Fonseca, are the target of operations by the western intelligence agencies.

As a result of analyzing this intelligence, it is of course noticed that various criminal activities, such as the illegal diversion of government funds, narcotics, and tax avoidance are also exposed. But as always, there are real barriers to using this information in domestic law enforcement as the source of the intelligence would have to be exposed.

In part two of the story, the United States and other countries are the victims of some very serious provocations, often behind the scenes but not entirely. Whatever is happening in Ukraine, and whatever happened in Crimea, there is every reason to think Russia is being proactive here behind the scenes. An even better example is the People's Republic of China who, if one can believe what one hears, has executed the largest intelligence operations in the history of the world outside of wartime in their “advanced persistent attacks” against American domestic and military targets. In other words, the PRC waged undeclared war against us, stole an incredible amount of military and other information, and then blandly denied it to our face.

In part three of our story, some part of the intelligence infrastructure, or the administration, notes that various leading members of the governments that are being so annoying have also violated their own laws by having these off-shore accounts for their own personal gain. They have thus made themselves vulnerable to attacks or blackmail of one form or another, perhaps thinking that they are protected because the “Western democracies” never inconveniences the rich of the world. And while that is true, it is possible that a special exception will be made for the leaders of some countries who have really gone out of their way to be annoying.

In part four of our story, the intelligence community of the country or countries try to come up with a way to use this information without having to admit that they have in fact spied on these law firms not to mention the various banking industries of certain nations who are guilty as hell. And it is noted that the world's fourth estate is unbelievably credulous and romantic about the so-called “individual whistle blower” who is acting out of a desire to help the world, or so the press believes.

Thus, the narrative goes, instead of releasing all the information collected from various law firms, banks, and so forth, it is proposed to leak the information of one particularly interesting law firm, and pretend that it came from an individual who, of course, must remain anonymous.  In this way, no one doubts the information the way they would if it came from our government, and even better, we don't have to pay for the analysis which no one would believe anyway. Instead we get hundreds of journalists on someone else's payroll to rake through the muck, having previously checked to see that there is nothing *too* embarrassing to us before it is released. In other words, some Americans and other westerners will be exposed here, but nothing too serious.

Thus I am proposing that one possible explanation for this unprecedented compromise of the great international industry of hiding money had nothing whatsoever with a lone whistle blower at all.

It is made all the more delicious as none other than that narcissistic keeper-of-the-truth, Ed Snowden, is acclaiming this leak and calling on various heads of state to resign.  How wonderful if it were to turn out not to be an individual leaker at all, but none other than the US Intelligence Community?

Sadly as time goes by and more and more prime ministers of the Western nations are forced to resign, this theory becomes more and more unlikely.  Which is a shame.  Perhaps, if it were true, it would merely be an example of "unintended consequences"?   Perhaps there is an intelligence agency somewhere with egg on its face?  Or perhaps it will turn out that this agency was in fact manipulated by the Bavarian Illuminati which stands behind and manipulates all such things? What is great about conspiracy theories is that you never know.

Wikipedia and the Moral Dilemma

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I use Wikipedia every day, at least once a day and probably more often than that. In their latest fundraising, I sent them $10.00 and if you know how cheap I am these days, that is quite a statement on my part.

And yet....

Every once in a while I come across egregious and even gross inaccuracies and therein lies the moral dilemma. Wikipedia is created by thousands of dedicated individuals most of whom are volunteers and all of whom are committed fanatics who probably have nothing better to do with their lives. I tried just this year to fix one egregious character assassination on their part of a living person (Marc Canter), something they *claim* to take special care about, and it was a nightmare. Its all bullshit my friends, they couldn't care less about accuracy as long as they get their rocks off.

So when I come across mistakes, even gross mistakes, what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to tilt at windmills and try to fix their misapprehensions? What good will it do? In situations like this, it is the insider who wins, the one with the most time to waste, usually the one who is most insane, and contrary to some beliefs I am not even slightly insane or at least I have no desire to waste my time trying to correct asshole beliefs.

Never try to teach a pig to sing.

If you want to read the bullshit and try to guess what the mistakes are, please see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_operation

You see, contrary to what you see in the movies, almost all black operations are legal, they are approved through a process that involves the Department of Justice, the Intelligence Committees of Congress, and of course the Executive Office of the President and various of his/her staff.   The process of approval is circumscribed in order to keep things as secret as possible, which is something that this government, as stated in the constitution and as approved by the courts, has the right to do.

You should realize that the process is not perfect, that it has changed over the decades, often in response to perceived abuses of the system by various administrations, and because the various Intelligence agencies believe that they have been used by various Administrations and then allowed to hang.   

You should also realize that almost all Intelligence activities have at their core the violation of someone's law, generally speaking, just not US law.  And yes, this is a tricky point in international relations, one that, upon examination, could make one wonder to what extent nations respect international law and to what extent they just pay lip service to it and invoke it when it is convenient to do so.

What Wikipedia should be saying here is that while black operations do not have normal Congressional oversight, they do have a process of approval that has been approved by Congress and the courts, and that these operations are therefore, in general, believed to be legal activities of the US Government, although by definition they are not ones that they would want to be publicly disclosed.

In other words, the paranoid interpretation that all secret intelligence operations by this country are illegal and not approved by the government is simply not true.

But that said, or at least that is my understanding, do I really want to try and change Wikipedia?