re: The Untold Story About Obama's Former CIA Director, John Brennan

So, Zero Hedge found a CIA professional who does not like Brennan. Good for them, but it sounds like this a a classic case of the rivalry between case officers and analysts. The latter think that the former are cowboys, and the former think that the latter are REMFs. This rivalry is not news.

quote:

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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.

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So, early in his career Brennan was Jack Ryan rather than John Clark. OK.

He started with the CIA in 1980. By the time he was assigned to brief Billy Jeff, he had been with the agency as an analyst for 14 years. Hardly the inexperienced neophyte described in that letter.

After less than two years briefing Billy Jeff, he goes back to HQ for about a year and then spends three years as Station Chief in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. That is a pretty “hands on” job.

From Jeddah, he returns to HQ, where he serves until given a political appointment by the Bush-43 administration, where he serves another two years before entering the private sector.

Do his personal politics lean Left? Almost certainly. Does he dislike and distrust Trump? Clearly.

But lets not pretend that one is any less an intelligence professional because his job was analyzing data rather than gathering it. That is like saying that Nick Saban cannot be a good coach simply because he never played pro ball.