Who spilled the beans on Israel’s plans for attacking Iran?
A CIA operative has been arrested for the leak of Israel’s plans on Iran:
A Guam-based CIA staffer named Asif W. Rahman was arrested after the Israeli plan for a counter-strike on Iran was passed on to Iranian-linked social media accounts. The leaked documents revealed detailed U.S. intelligence on Israeli military preparations in the run-up to a possible Israeli retaliation to a major Iranian aerial attack in early October.
Rahman was arrested in Cambodia; had he fled there? He had a top security clearance, and has been charged with “two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.”
Of course, anyone reading the name “Asif Rahman” immediately recognizes it as Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakistani (which would be South Asian). I can’t find any more information on who he actually is, but I did find a road in Queens named after a man with the same moniker, a young musician and artist who was tragically killed on that road by a truck while riding his bike. This other Asif Rahman had been raised in Queens but was born in Bangladesh, which is the country that used to be known as East Pakistan. So my best guess is that the Asif Rahman who was recently arrested might be of Bangladesh origin.
An agency like the CIA has a dilemma. It probably needs to have agents with backgrounds in Muslim countries around the world, and yet vetting them presents special challenges. Then again, as we know full well, spies and moles come from all backgrounds. Some of the most dangerous have been all-American, such as Robert Hanssen, for example:
Hanssen’s espionage activities began in 1985. Since he held key counterintelligence positions [with the FBI], he had authorized access to classified information. He used encrypted communications, “dead drops,” and other clandestine methods to provide information to the KGB and its successor agency, the SVR. The information he delivered compromised numerous human sources, counterintelligence techniques, investigations, dozens of classified U.S. government documents, and technical operations of extraordinary importance and value.
Because of his experience and training as a counterintelligence agent, Hanssen went undetected for years, although some of his unusual activities had aroused suspicion from time to time. Still, he was not identified as a spy.
Hanssen was responsible for the death of many informants, and he received a life sentence.
Then there was Aldrich Ames of the CIA, currently serving a life sentence for spying:
In court, Ames admitted that he had compromised “virtually all Soviet agents of the CIA and other American and foreign services known to me” and had provided the USSR and Russia with a “huge quantity of information on United States foreign, defense and security policies”.[42] It is estimated that information Ames provided to the Soviets led to the compromise of at least 100 American intelligence operations and the execution of at least ten sources.
These people are vipers.
I wonder what the ultimate charges against Rahman will be.
With the trail of deaths they left behind, perhaps it is time to execute some of these traitors, pour encouragour les autres.
If he has a conventional trial, I wonder who’ll be outside insisting he be acquitted.
SCOTTtheBADGER:
Hanssen died in 2023.
Anybody know what the professed motivations of Hanssen and Aldrich were? They loved Soviet communism? Big money? Blackmail? Threats to family? Hated America?
And one should believe this report…why exactly?
Richard A., I found the Wiki material on Ames that neo posted interesting in that respect. Financial interest seemed to have been the primary driver in his case. There must have been some sort of sociopathic side to these men, too, in order for them to give information that they knew would lead to the deaths of countrymen, even colleagues.
Richard Aubrey:
My understanding of the two is that they were motivated almost exclusively by money. Both stated that ideology played no part in their actions. They were non-ideological: hatred of America was not a motivation.
Implicit in their actions and statements, and testimonies of those who knew them, is that they were supremely egotistical and arrogant, and thought of themselves as the proverbial smartest person in the room. It was an ego trip for them. It was a game. They derived gratification in outsmarting U.S. intelligence agencies and their operatives. When Hanssem was arrested and the handcuffs were put on him, he said, “What took you so long?” He damn well knew, or thought he knew, what took them so long: he was too smart for them. Classic narcissism on display.
The question of whether or not they were sociopaths is arguable. Maybe they were simply arrogant asshole scumbags. You don’t have to be a sociopath to be an arrogant asshole scumbag. Or, simply, a bad person.
Asif: Arab, Islamic or Hebrew
Rahman: Arab, Hebrew or German
Just spit balling, but I doubt he’s German or Hebrew.
Don’t forget Martin and Mitchell.
My wife’s sister and her husband lived 3 or 4 doors down from Hanssen when the FBI arrested him. Bro-in-law was DEA, in fact most of the subdivision were Feds of some sort. It was early on a Saturday morning, the FBI had blocked the street off and were swarming all over Hanssen’s house. She said she most remembers bro-in-law and the rest of the neighborhood Dads standing around in their bathrobes and sweat pants waving their badges around trying to find out what was going on.
Ames was mostly about money. Hanssen had issues beyond money. He was a devout Catholic, but he secretly video taped him and his wife having sex and gave the tapes to a friend of his. He thought his supervisors at the Bureau were out to get him.
I must have missed that day in Catholic catechism class where we learn that we’re supposed to record videos of having sex with our wives and share the recordings with friends.
@ Neo > “anyone reading the name “Asif Rahman” immediately recognizes it as Middle Eastern or perhaps Pakistani”
He wouldn’t be any relation to the Awan family, would he?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/982314/former-democratic-it-staffer-imran-awan-avoids-jail-time/
I had forgotten what happened to him once the news cycle moved on.
Odd that his case went before Judge Chutkan, and she was not harsh.
Or as the Regime Media put it:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/21/politics/imran-awan-sentencing/index.html
“Former House IT staffer at center of debunked conspiracy theories avoids jail time”
A reminder that a “plea deal” is not the same as “debunking” a charge.
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Note that brutal death sentences were not enough to prevent Soviet/Russian personnel from working for Western intelligence services. Some of the U.S. traitors of the past century did so for ideological reasons (adoration for Communism, more recently for Islam in some cases, Israel in the case of Pollard), but most did it for the money (Ames, Walker, Hanssen; Kampiles gave the Soviets the operations manual for a sensitive intelligence source in exchange for $3,000–a pittance even when he did it over 40 years ago) and/or the sense of “sticking it to the man” who failed to recognize and reward their self-perception of their brilliance (Hanssen, Ames).
Thanks for the info on our traitors. I’d heard such things before, but….
I’ve worked in hierarchies, military and otherwise. It is extremely difficult to make one’s way up the chain while keeping such a complete opposition to the organization’s goals–or nation’s goals–from others. Including those who decide on promotion, continued employment, and assignments. And in the instant cases, their work has to seem to succeed while they make sure it fails.
But…the FBI’s director of the Richmond Field Office thought it would be a dandy idea to infiltrate Catholic churches looking for terrorists. Either he was that way when recruited and was not “corrected”, or he got that way while in the FBI, Wray’s expressions of horror notwithstanding.