Inside The Aquarium: The Sinister Kremlin Organization That Burns Traitors In A Furnace - How The GRU Has Its Own 25,000 Strong Special Forces Army, Helped Bring Down MH17 And Is Secretly On The Ground In Ukraine And Syria

Michael Burleigh at the Daily Mail offers a piece on the history and current activities of the Russian military intelligence organization the GRU.  

The GRU may have been founded during the Russian Civil War a century ago, but today it has found favour with Vladimir Putin as the perfect organization to carry out his 21st century military tactics.

As we have seen in Ukraine, the US and in Salisbury, Russia is turning away from conventional displays of force and towards what has been dubbed ‘non-linear warfare’.

This uses a combination of covert special-forces operations, spying, cyber attacks and internet trolls to destabilize enemy nations. Because Russia always stops short of outright aggression, the West has struggled to come up with an effective response to this provocation.

 It started as an intelligence-gathering agency for Trotsky’s Bolshevik Red Army, and Lenin insisted it remain separate from the other intelligence organization.

Today it still sits apart from the SVR, the external spying service, and the domestic FSB (the equivalents of Britain’s MI6 and MI5), which were created when the notorious KGB was split in 1991.

As a subordinate branch of Russia’s armed forces rather than a self-contained agency, the GRU answers to Defence Minister Sergey Shoygu and to Valeri Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff.

It is based in a headquarters nicknamed The Aquarium on an airbase near Moscow and is very large, deploying six times as many agents in foreign countries as the SVR. These are typically embedded in Russian embassies as military attaches and work on recruiting foreign double agents as well as monitoring military installations and new weapons systems.

It has its own special forces, known as Spetsnaz. The GRU in 1997 was believed to have 25,000 Spetsnaz special forces soldiers, such as these operating in Dagestan in September 1999 hunting for Islamic militants 

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6136491/GRU-perfect-agency-conduct-Putins-non-linear-warfare-strategy.html

Note: If you want to learn more about the GRU, I suggest you read Viktor Suvorov's book Inside the Aquarium: The Making of a Top Soviet Spy. 

Happy 79th Birthday To George Lazenby, The Actor Who Portrayed James Bond In 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'

Happy 79^th birthday to George Lazenby, the actor who portrayed James Bond in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service is one my favorite James Bond films. Although not a traditional Christmas film, I watch the film every Christmas season, as the film takes place in Switzerland during Christmas.

Considering that George Lazenby had not acted before, I thought he gave a fine performance. He looked like Ian Fleming's Bond and he did the fight and action scenes very well.  

On Her Majesty's Secret Service  was directed by Peter Hunt, the great editor of the previous Bond films. Hunt was faithful to Fleming's novel and made one of the best Bond films, in my view.

The film also offered Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld and the beautiful Diana Rigg as Tracy, Bond's tragic lover. 

Although I would have preferred a European actor to portray the mad, evil criminal genius, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Telly Salvalas was very good in the role. Salvalas had a great sense of command and madness and I believe he was the best Blofeld in the film series. 

The beautiful and alluring Diana Rigg was also very good as Bond's doomed girlfriend, and briefly, his wife.

Lastly, John Barry's musical soundtrack is truly outstanding.

It is a pity that George Lazenby did not continue in the series, as I believe he would have grown into the role and given Connery a run for his money. And we would have been spared the decade of Bond-lite with Roger Moore portraying a lighthearted, comical Bond.

Navy's 'Fat Leonard' Case Implodes

Mark D. Faram at the Navy Times offers a piece on the U.S. Navy’s “Fat Leonard” bribery and fraud scandal.

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — With the close of the Navy’s first “Fat Leonard” court-martial trial, the defendant is going to the brig but he escaped the most serious charges and potentially jeopardized future federal fraud cases against a string of past and present sailors.

Cmdr. David Morales was found guilty of only two of the five charges he faced — conduct unbecoming an officer and failing to report foreign contacts on his security clearance renewal.

After closing arguments on Friday, the Navy trial judge, Capt. Charles N. Purnell, deliberated overnight and delivered a verdict that stripped out the conspiracy, bribery and making a false official statement charges.

On Saturday, Purnell sentenced the fighter pilot to 165 days of confinement, forfeiture of $30,000 in pay over the next five months and an additional $5,000 fine.

Morales faced 17 years behind bars if he was convicted on the original charges. After Purnell gutted the most serious remaining specifications on Saturday he was still staring at a maximum term of two-and-a-half years in the brig.

He ended up with less than six months in prison.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2018/09/01/navys-fat-leonard-case-implodes/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ebb%209/4/18&utm_

term=Editorial%20-%20Military%20-%20Early%20Bird%20Brief

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the Fat Leonard scandal via the below link:

www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2017/03/my-piece-on-fat-leonard-us-navy-bribery.html 

Marshall Center Course Highlights Combating Transnational Criminals

Christine June at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies offers the below piece: GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany, Sept. 4, 2018 — Transnational criminal organizations have benefitted from globalization, said the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict. Thomas Alexander (seen in the above photo) spoke to 88 participants from 54 countries as the keynote speaker for the Program on Countering Transnational Organized Crime at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies Aug. 24. The Marshall Center is a German-American international security and defense studies institute based here. National Security Concerns “Overlapping networks enable transnational criminal organizations to move illicit shipments quickly throughout the world,” Alexander said. “They also face little risk of detection, due to the sheer volume of global trade coming into container ports or the emerging trend of trafficking drug precursor chemicals directly to customers via the internet and global mail.” Held twice a year, the CTOC course emphasizes how transnational organized crime threatens nations’ national security. Lectures and case studies examine the major methods by which transnational criminal organizations engage in illegal activities. Seminar activities focus on methods to combat this threat through the development of CTOC strategies, and whole-of-government and inter-regional solutions. Professor Joe Vann, CTOC program director, said he and his staff focus on teaching course participants how to develop strategies to combat the activities of drug cartels, terrorists and transnational criminal organizations. “We try to give our participants executive development skills so that when they go home they will be able to adapt and modify these skills and improve their ability to make a difference in their countries,” Vann said “We want them to become senior decision makers who can help develop and direct countering transnational organized crime strategies in their countries.” He added, “We teach them to think critically in order to assess complex problems. These skills are required in order to develop solutions and strategies to disrupt the activities of transnational criminal organizations.” Course Participants Course participants included military and civilian government officials and practitioners who are engaged in policy development, law enforcement, intelligence and interdiction activities aimed at countering illicit narcotics trafficking, terrorist involvement in criminal activity and the associated elements of transnational crime and corruption. “The Marshall Center does a fabulous job pulling the right officials from the right countries and have them strategize together because that’s ultimately what they are going to have to do when they go back home,” Alexander said. In 2014, the Marshall Center was designated by the Department of Defense as a center of excellence for transnational security studies due to its countering transnational organized crime program, as well as its programs on countering terrorism and cyber threats. Developing Strategies “In my country, I am a member of the group that is writing how to combat money laundering and finance terrorism as part of our national strategy,” said Madina Adam Sere, financial analyst with the Ministry of Finance in the Ivory Coast. She added that they have one year to write this portion of the country’s national strategy. In two years, that strategy will be due for evaluation, she added. “That’s why it was important that I participated in this course because now I have more knowledge on how to write this strategy and to consider more aspects of countering money laundering and finance terrorism than I had considered before,” Sere said. “This is because the lectures covered many aspects of transnational organized crime, and I was able to ask direct questions from experts in the field.” Sere and her fellow course participants heard from faculty and invited subject matter experts who are experienced in different areas of combating transnational organized crime such as narcotics trafficking, human smuggling, weapons trafficking, cybercrime and money laundering. Sharing Information “I also have a lot of contacts outside of my country that I didn’t have before attending this course,” Sere said. “Now, I have people from more than 50 countries that I can ask if I need more information while I am helping to write this part of our national strategy.” The Marshall Center’s alumni network consists of more than 13,000 security professionals from 154 nations. Sere said she feels comfortable contacting those in this network because of the Marshall Center connection. “I am becoming more and more convinced that nowhere in the world will you have an opportunity to sit in a group of 80 to 90 people from around the world with this level of experience and be able to share information and learn from each other,” Vann said to the participants at the beginning of the course. Valuable Connections “What you learn here will be very important for when you go home, but also the connections you make here will be equally important,” Vann continued. “We see that every day when someone reaches back to a participant they had opportunity to be in class with and actually solve investigations or problems.” He added, “Don’t lose sight of that. Please appreciate it. Don’t take for granted the magic that really happens here.” During the last week of the program, participants strategized together in their seminars to develop a CTOC strategy and present it to the plenary right before graduation. Alexander was able to review these presentations and ask questions. In his address, Alexander listed the two key parts of strategizing as understanding the enemy and building relationships. “Your readiness can be attributed to the Marshall Center’s hands-on approach to teaching,” he said. “The center’s talented staff realizes that when pursuing our adversaries, good CTOC strategists strive to outsmart and stay one step ahead.”  Note: The above DoD photo of Thomas Alexander was taken by Karl-Heinz Wedhorn

The True Story Of “Operation Finale” - Director Chris Weitz Explores The 1960 Hunt For Nazi War Criminal Adolf Eichmann In The New Feature Film

Patrick Sauer at Smithsonian.com offers a piece on the new film about the capture of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman. 

It was late fall in Buenos Aires and Ricardo Klement was an ordinary man living an ordinary life. Every morning, he took the bus to his job as a foreman at a Mercedes-Benz factory, and every evening, he returned to his wife and two children in their suburban home. The mirage that was his very existence shattered on May 11, 1960, when he was thrown to the ground, shoved into the backseat of a car, tied up, gagged and blindfolded, threatened with death, and driven to a safe house for interrogation. His captors pulled off the mission in under ten minutes, but it had been meticulously planned out for months, escalating in late March, when Klement’s true identity as Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was confirmed. 

The bold undertaking was carried out by Israeli intelligence operatives acting on behalf of the Israeli government. Afraid they would be thwarted by a sympathetic fascistic regime, they never told Argentinian authorities about their mission. Eichmann, the “Architect of the Holocaust,” would be brought to Israel to stand trial on 15 counts of war crimes perpetrated against the Jewish people and against humanity. A year later, his televised trial would be the first time the breadth and depravity of Nazi atrocities were exposed to the world at-large.

The daring mission to smuggle Eichmann out of Argentina is told in Operation Finale, a new film directed by Chris Weitz, which opens on August 29. The movie covers the entire operation, from locating Klement and confirming his true identity, through his capture, 11-day interrogation, return flight to Israel, and the opening of the trial. On the whole, Operation Finale is a straightforward, old-fashioned spy caper, steeped in the nuts-and-bolts of bringing one man home alive to answer for the crimes of the Third Reich. But it’s the scenes between Eichmann and Peter Malkin, a cunning-yet-humane Mossad agent, that really crackle. To stand trial in Israel, the court required Eichmann’s consent signature, and Malkin took it upon himself to get it through means beyond intimidation or torture. It’s Malkin’s attempt to understand Eichmann as more than a monster, even though the Nazis killed his beloved sister and her children, that gives Operational Finale its emotional and psychological heft.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-operation-finale-180970153/?utm_source=smithsoniantopic&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20180902-Weekender&spMailingID=35844049&spUserID=NzQwNDU4NTg2NjMS1&spJobID=

1360154066&spReportId=MTM2MDE1NDA2NgS2

Labor Day 2018: Celebrating And Honoring The Greatest Worker In The World - The American Worker

The U.S. Department of Labor offers the below message and a video on this Labor Day:

On Labor Day, we celebrate and honor the greatest worker in the world – the American worker. 

Watch to learn just a few of the ways that the Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Labor are helping more Americans secure good, safe, family-sustaining jobs.

Senator John McCain’s Life Celebrated At Washington National Cathedral

Terri Moon Cronk at the DoD News offers the below piece:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1, 2018 — The nation bid farewell to Arizona Sen. John S. McCain III -- former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, war hero and Vietnam prisoner of war -- in a patriotic and emotional service today at the Washington National Cathedral. 

McCain lost his battle with brain cancer Aug. 25 at age 81. He will be laid to rest tomorrow at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

VIPs, from former presidents Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton, to Defense Secretary James N. Mattis and former defense secretaries Leon Panetta and Ash Carter, attended the funeral.

The military provided ceremonial support for the retired Navy captain from body bearers and ushers to the U.S. Navy Band and U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club during a service that spanned two-and-a-half hours.

McCain’s ‘Amazing’ Life

Former President George W. Bush said what was remarkable about McCain’s life was the “amazing sweep” of it. 

“From a tiny prison cell in Vietnam to the floor of the United States Senate, from trouble-making [Naval Academy] plebe to presidential candidate, wherever John passed throughout the world, people immediately knew there was a leader in their midst,” he said. 

“And one epic life was written of courage and greatness of our country,” Bush added.

“John was, above all, a man with a code,” the former president said. “He lived by a set of public virtues that brought strength and purpose to his life and to his country.

“He was courageous, with a courage that frightened his captors and inspired his countrymen,” Bush said.

“As John would say: ‘My friends,’ we come to celebrate an extraordinary man -- a warrior, a statesman, a patriot, [who] embodied so much that is best in America,” former President Barack Obama said. 

‘He Made This Country Better’

Obama said McCain made him and Bush better presidents during his Senate tenure, “just as he made the Senate better. Just as he made this country better.”

McCain showed a largeness of spirit and an ability to see past differences in search of common ground, the 44th president said.

He answered the highest of callings to do something that was bigger than he was by serving his country during a time of war, Obama said. 

“Others this week and this morning have spoken of the depths of his torment and the depths of his courage there in the cells of Hanoi, when day after day, year after year, that youthful iron was tempered into steel.” he said of McCain’s five-and-a-half years spent as a prisoner of war. 

In captivity, McCain learned how each moment, each day and each choice is a test, the former president noted. “And John McCain passed that test again and again and again. And that’s why when John spoke of virtues like service and duty, it didn’t ring hollow. Those weren’t just words to him. It was a truth that he had lived, and for which he was prepared to die.”

A Family Man

McCain was also lauded as a great family man, husband and father.

His daughter, Meghan McCain, gave the eulogy and said, “the nation is here to remember you,” to her father.

“That fervent faith, that proven devotion, that abiding love -- that is what drove my father from the fiery skies above the Red River Delta to the brink of the presidency itself,” she said. 

“Dad,” McCain said, “your greatness is woven … into the life and liberty of the country you sacrificed so much to defend.”