Sometimes these intelligence heads don't seem very intelligent.
First posted May 24, 2022.
I don't think we've ever said anything nice about Sir Richard Dearlove.
Here's the headline story, I'll be back in a moment. From the New York Post, May 22:
Russian President Vladimir Putin will land in a long-term medical facility by next year, a former MI6 chief predicted amid rumors that the Kremlin strongman’s health is failing.
Sir Richard Dearlove said on the “One Decision” podcast that Putin, 69, could be sent to a sanatorium as part of an exit strategy amid Russia’s struggling effort to invade neighboring Ukraine.
“I’m really going to stick my neck out. I think he’ll be gone by 2023,” forecast Dearlove, a co-host of the podcast. “Probably into the sanatorium, from which he will not emerge as leader of Russia.”
Putting Putin in the medical facility would be the “elegant” alternative to a coup, said Dearlove, who was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 until 2004....
....MUCH MORE
Back to posts that mentioned Dearlove. There was that time in 2019 that I got close to giving a compliment:
"Former CIA director Petraeus joins KKR backed security firm"There aren't any assets to strip, or leverage before a bankruptcy bust-out.....
And that time in 2018 that I didn't flat-out say he was part of the Cambridge Analytica mob but did cast aspersions:
"Cambridge Analytica Just Filed For US Bankruptcy"
And the time in 2020 after ZH was banned from Twitter (Jan. 31) for reposting the bio of researcher and team leader of bat virus infection and immunity, Peng Zhou, PhD, which the Wuhan Institute of Virology had proudly posted on their website (since removed):
Thursday, June 4, 2020ZeroHedge Says To Former MI6 Head: "Hey, Get Off Our Side"
Whenever I hear a spook talk, Brennan, Clapper, Dearlove, Steele, any of them, I am reminded of the John le Carré line:
“What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists, and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing the rights and wrongs?”They lie for a living. They're professional liars, the very nature of their business is lies and trafficking in lies.
— Alec Leamas, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, 1963
[note: le Carré worked for both MI5 and MI6, he knew these people]
From ZeroHedge:
Former MI6 Boss Says COVID-19 Manmade, Escaped From Chinese Lab
The former head of Britain's MI6 spy agency believes COVID-19 is a manmade virus that accidentally escaped from a Chinese laboratory, based on forthcoming research, according to The Telegraph.....MUCH MORE
Entitled "A Reconstructed Historical Aetiology of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike", the new study, seen by The Telegraph, suggests the virus is "remarkably well-adapted virus for human co-existence" and is likely to be the result of a Wuhan lab experiment to produce "chimeric viruses of high potency".Perhaps most notable is that the former MI6 boss in question is Sir Richard Dearlove - who helped Obamagate operative Stefan Halper set up a smear campaign against Michael Flynn, and who made a name for himself nearly two decades ago peddling a bogus report that Saddam Hussein had WMDs - which Tony Blair used to justify the UK's involvement the Iraq war. Clearly Dearlove is trying to ruin our street cred....
The paper concludes: "Henceforth, those who would maintain that the Covid-19 pandemic arose from zoonotic transfer need to explain precisely why this more parsimonious account is wrong before asserting that their evidence is persuasive, most especially when, as we also show, there are puzzling errors in their use of evidence." -The Telegraph
In the words of Larry the Cable Guy:
"I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."