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A CIA calendar the CIA gift shop refuses to sell
- tyingq 10y agoThis post[1] about the CIA gift shop was far more interesting to me. [1]http://savageminds.org/2013/11/13/made-in-china-notes-from-the-cia-gift-shop/ http://savageminds.org/2013/11/13/made-in-china-notes-from-t...
- tlrobinson 10y agoI imagine he's going to sell a hell of a lot more of them due to this article than he would in the gift shop.
- sytse 10y agoI can't read the article, when I use the web link the WP complains I've read too many articles and I don't see an easy way (outside using dev tools) to get rid of the popup. Of course it is their right to ask me to subscribe.
- throwanem 10y agoTry reader mode.
- sytse 10y agoAwesome, that works in Safari. I could not find an official reader mode in Chrome, it seems https://plus.google.com/u/0/+FrancoisBeaufort/posts/KEcP88z2tfh https://plus.google.com/u/0/+FrancoisBeaufort/posts/KEcP88z2... is not launched yet since chrome://flags#enable-reader-mode-toolbar-icon doesn't reveal anything.
- tvon 10y agoI'll sum it up: The inaugural “Secret Ops of the CIA” calendar was produced by the nephew of an agency contractor killed in the line of duty and features reproductions of the actual paintings that have hung for years inside the hallways of the CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia. (...) The calendars are on sale for $28 at the International Spy Museum (...) (...) Toni Hiley, the longtime CIA museum director, said the gift shop can’t sell the calendar because “it’s not an official work of the U.S. government.”
- sytse 10y agoThanks!
- tomjen3 10y ago
- ommunist 10y agoIf you want to fight global terrorism, you needto create one first. Commemorating this very idea, 'The First Sting' painting is priceless.
- ihaveahadron 10y agoI'm a CIA agent and I can vouch that this story checks out.
- rrggrr 10y agoI'm hopeful that after the Washington Post hires the 5 dozen additional reporters it plans to add in 2017, readers will again see real investigative journalism. The hard-hitting reporting of the 1970's and 80's has been replaced by opinion pieces masquerading as journalism and puff pieces like this.
- chrissnell 10y agoNo doubt. I subscribed to WaPo in hopes of finding a politically neutral (or at least, balanced) paper that focused on real news and not political opinion and crap. The last year, however, has been dreadful for that paper. It feels like 80% of the first page of front page content has been anti-Trump opinion pieces. I want to read about the war in Syria, ISIS, finance, the American economy, and technology. This stuff should be the mainstay of any U.S. paper.
- iscrewyou 10y agoDo you recommed another paper I can subscribe to that tries to reports more neutral?
- oh_sigh 10y agoEnglish version of al jazeera has good info on ISIS/Syria/North Africa. Not without it's own biases, but definitely more in depth topics than we get in western papers.
- 464192002d7fe1c 10y agoal jazeera wears their biases on their sleeve, when I read something from them I know to read it with the understanding that its from the Qatar state-run media outlet. My primary issue with outlets like WaPo is that they pretend to be objective journalism while publishing rather blatant propaganda pieces. Same reason why I can (and do) read sites like breitbart, they don't pretend to be objective news sources.
- taxicabjesus 10y agoI once had a passenger who'd moved to Scottsdale, Arizona when he was a Green Beret (Army Special Forces). They'd picked Scottsdale because General North needed an airport with a big enough runway for their planes [1]... I always wonder what the secret services are really up to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Contra_Affair
- chrissnell 10y agoSorry to break it to you but any time a random person offers up that they were in special operations, they almost always are lying. This paradox is well-known among military servicemembers but not as much by civilians. You never, ever here these fakers offer up that they were an Army cook or a Navy supply clerk, even though there's 1000x more of these than there are special operators. If someone ever tells you he or she was a generator mechanic or a network tech in the war, they're almost certainly telling you the truth.
- taxicabjesus 10y agoI had a strategy for getting people to tell me things that they wouldn't normally have volunteered. This anecdote was mentioned in passing, and I would not have caught the significance if I'd not remembered Oliver North's notoriety.
- oh_sigh 10y agoShare your strategy please.
- taxicabjesus 10y agoI asked a lot of questions. Some were oddly-specific, and usually (but not always) answered in the negative. If the answer was probably already supplied by context the question would be rather general, so as to avoid putting my foot in my mouth like that one time I made an assumption about where the passenger was going... This is something I intend to flesh out some day on my site (url in profile).
- themodelplumber 10y agoFascinating. Where can I read about the Manchurian ambush and the guy shooting into the Chinese biplane?
- Leynos 10y agoThe events depicted in "Ambush in Manchuria" are described here: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol50no4/two-cia-prisoners-in-china-1952201373.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... This appears to be the painting in question: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/7190299989 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/7190299989 The circumstances surrounding the gentleman shooting at the biplane from a helicopter are described here: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol52no2/iac/an-air-combat-first.html https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig... I agree with your sentiment that the WaPo should have provided more detailed accounts or external links to such.
- saycheese 10y agoCIA Art Collection info: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol52no2/iac https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...
- djsumdog 10y agoI think it would be interesting and heartbreaking to view this calendar. The CIA is not the noble intelligence agency that's sold to the world. There is testimony given before congress that confirms they have injected propaganda into major magazines for decades and they have refused to answer any questions about TV propaganda. > Flip to April for “The First Sting,” depicting a CIA-trained Afghan mujahideen striking Soviet helicopters with a Stinger missile. The mujahideen was created when the US convinced Egypt to release their criminals (murders, rapists, some political prisoners) and let them gain freedom by fighting a war in Afghanistan. That's where you get the Taliban. Also in case anyone has forgotten, the US is still bombing Afghanistan. Their civilian population is terrified of drones. It's been the longest military campaign by the US ever. (see the BBC documentary: The Power of Nightmares)
- jonnybgood 10y agoThe Taliban didn't rise out of the mujahideen. The Taliban started essentially as a grassroots movement by students. There's even mujihadeen who later fought the Taliban.
- gertef 10y agoThe Taliban was a response (and therefore inspired and motivated by) the mujahideen, no? So if there were no extremist mujahideen, there'd be no extremist Taliban response.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- PerfectDlite 10y ago> The mujahideen was created when the US convinced Egypt to release their criminals (murders, rapists, some political prisoners) and let them gain freedom by fighting a war in Afghanistan. So, Soviets invading the Afghanistan wasn't responsible for anything? Also I'd like to see some sources.
- linkregister 10y ago> The mujahideen was created when the US convinced Egypt to release their criminals (murders, rapists, some political prisoners) and let them gain freedom by fighting a war in Afghanistan. That is a theory I have never come across before. Can you point me to the book or article that you got that idea from?
- escape_goat 10y agoIt would be interesting to gain some professional insight on what's happening here, as I (like several other responders) find this article somewhat objectionable. The story that is presented literally ends with these words: > the gift shop can’t sell the calendar because "it’s not an official work of the U.S. government There's no need for punctuation, no need to close the quote. The story is over. There's still a question in my mind, though, about how this came to pass. Looking at the story closely, it appears to largely consist of a human interest filler piece on one particular man's hobby devotion to the CIA, as well as the sentimentality of several former operatives; actually, I imagine some frowns at the CIA to see the story being published, because it looks awfully like a major national newspaper known for investigative journalism doing a favour to former (and possibly current) CIA employees by publicizing their pet project. I don't have the experience to look at an article and recognize what it was meant to be, but the structure seems very awkward, and I am wondering if we are seeing a story that just turned out to be meaningless and was published anyway (the gift shop refusal) or a rather boring (to anyone without a 'patriotic'-type interest in the CIA) human interest piece that was unwisely and badly rearranged to justify a clickbait title. Knowledgeable replies would be very welcome. I am willing to say things that are wrong if that would help inspire you.
- gertef 10y agoThe article goes on for many paragraphs after the end you saw. I think your browser/add-ons are incompatible withthe website.
- nyolfen 10y agospeaking of WaPo running CIA PR, from today: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/27/why-its-so-hard-to-prove-russia-was-behind-the-election-hacks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/27/...
- Natsu 10y agoThe Washington Post does a lot of favors they don't publicize. For example, this: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699 They made an arrangement with the WaPo to quietly add DNC donors to the party invite list. They wanted to put that on their donor price sheets, but the lawyers wouldn't allow it. It's not clear how or why this kind of stealthy donation of services from the WaPo to the DNC was better.
- BoringCode 10y agoTheir point was that judging by the headline that should have been the end of the article. Are you trying to be obtuse?
- 01Michael10 10y agoWhat? I would re-read the OP comment.
- BoringCode 10y agoI did. You're being either obtuse or are communicating your point poorly. The majority of the story is tangentially related to the statement presented in the headline. It was designed to grab your attention, "wait, why won't the sell it?" But the question in the reader's mind is answered almost immediately. Obviously it wasn't literally the end of the article. But that wasn't the point of OP.
- dang 10y agoPersonal incivility is not allowed on HN. We ban accounts that do this. Please be respectful to others when commenting here, regardless of how wrong someone might be. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13279960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13279960 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- mSparks 10y agoplease take your life somewhere else.
- disposablezero 10y agoIntelligence agencies proportedly of democracies should invest more in cultural (and philosophical) self-reflection. That might mean "wasting" comparatively tiny sums on art, architecture, history, archival, philosophy and other non-mission-oriented realms because they may bring social wealth and beauty to where there may otherwise be only perfunctory, brutalist utility.