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19 September 2023 (Tuesday)
Monkeys On My Back
Shoes as Archetype
By Wendell Minnick (Whiskey Mike) 顏文德
TAIPEI - Today, from 14:00-15:00, I had monkeys on my back.
Two youngsters (early-mid 20s) and an old man (my age roughly).
The shoes gave them away. Surveillance teams use them as tags.
These were not the same type of shoes I had seen before via the National Security Bureau (NSB) or the Ministry of Justice Investigative Bureau (MJIB), but more like stylish black running shoes with white soles.
In the past, NSB and MJIB normally wore uncomfortable black dress shoes made by the Material Production Center (MPC) under the military’s Armaments Bureau. I can only assume they got smart and tossed those toe curlers in favor of pragmatism.
I asked a friend for a Devil’s Advocacy pro bono.
Possible Ideas: Could be a training operation for the two kids. One a young woman with Harry Potter glasses who watched me from about 50ft in a restaurant without ever looking at her phone (clearly a tipoff).
The other a young man who followed me around until I turned the corner waiting for him. It was an amusing moment, but tactically it is bad counter-surveillance on my part. The old man, who looks like he needs an enema, might have been the test evaluator.
One possibility is that it was a response to my article on the J-6 issue. That seems possible, but J-6 should talk to J-1, J-2, J-3, and all the other J’s rather than focus on me.
The other possibility is that it was Virginia farm boys at AIT with local assistance. If so, it was likely an AIT effort to placate political rage within Taiwan’s spookville about whether or not I am a NOC (non-official cover).
The other thought was that it was the NSB or the MJIB. However, MJIB has a liaison office to deal directly with folks like me and I have had coffee on occasion over the past 25 years to untangle misunderstandings.
The suggestion it was an NSB training operation is possible. I appreciate being considered a hard target for testing these youngsters for future government service.
If it was a serious surveillance operation then it was poorly conducted. It is also insulting to send kids after me, though I tried to be polite and be professional.
If it was a training operation, then that accounts for the fact there were only three people; if there was a fourth I could not spot, then it was not for training (4 man team ÷ 2).
If it was a decision made by the Chief of Station (COS), then it was typical for their AIT office. In March 2017, we will call him/her “Chris” for short, was fired for not stacking up to job expectations. Rumors about some sort of Buddha Voodoo.
There is a redundancy of stupidity at AIT via the U.S. intelligence community (IC) going back to the 1990s.
However, this criticism does not include the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and their Defense Attaché System (DAS), nor their Defense Clandestine Service (DCS) (formerly the Defense Human Intelligence Service) under the DIA's Directorate of Operations.
Not to forget the DIA’s Defense Cover Office (DCO) responsible for executing cover programs for intelligence officers for covert operations, these include front companies, safe houses, and a secure Internet Provider (IP) for both the front company and the safe house. The IP address for all the fronts seem to have the same provider…
One of the most obvious CIA misfits inside AIT was Kevin Mallory who was sentenced to 20 years in 2019 for spying for China.
China executed around twenty CIA assets from 2010-2012. There are serious issues with the Agency that involve a lack of institutional memory and a tendency towards self-destructive behavior.
When it comes to self-destruction, I prefer the old days of debauchery when CIA officers smoked, drank, and whored around, compared to today’s politically correct rainbow warriors spreading Monkey Pox.
Whether training or legitimate we might never know, but these are interesting ideas from the Devil.
But…I have this message for those who can hear the dark and see the sound waves:
“Listen people, everyone knows where this is going. If this was a legit op, and I can't imagine how it could be, then so be it. But if this was someone's unilateral wet dream, then that someone is going to prison [the ICU].” - Admiral Shaffer, Enemy of the State (1998).
If there is an issue on the street with my family and your people, I will be both truthful and unmerciful.
Memento Mori…