Elizabeth since this pool is empty I thought that I might want to jump in and splash around a bit. I've been carefully reading all the posts and also imagining the WWII operations that Mr. twigswnapper and Dr. Brown were participating in, and I'm wondering how well our intelligence agencies have been performing in the past as compared to the present day.
It seems that these days the CIA is really looked upon as some sort of cold blooded and evil society where everyone specializes in cut-throat tactics and backstabbing manipulative skulldugerry. All we hear about is the corruption, and evil deeds that are being exposed on CNN and other news channels.
Of course nobody ever hears about the successes over the past several decades. I guess that is the price paid for being "silent warriors". The problem seems to be that there is a larger gap than ever in the public perception of the agency and the agency's actual functions.
Then there is the dramatic NEW Hollywood version of secret agencies. I saw MI3 last night, and boy do they ever put on a good action packed adventurous human drama filled with impossible gadgetry.
I'm increasingly deceived with the unrealistic maner in which these spy movies are seemingly distorting this type of work. Of course I really have no point of reference except for the ever so few biographies written about famous people like Peter Wright, Sir William Stephenson, and other non-fiction like the "Puzzle Palace", "By Way of Deception" and other well researched books .
When I was younger I use to watch the old mission impossible series on TV, and it seemed to me at the time that there was WAY LESS violence, and a lot more "MIND GAMES".
In most, if not all cases, -only the bad guy was hurt or caught and usually the "MIND GAME" was exposed in the end, making the bad guy look like a fool as he's taken to prison. If you remember the series it appeared that VIOLENCE was carefully avoided as best as possible.(a mater of familly values I suppose)
I'm told that the old TV series was regularly mailed to "Station Chiefs" oversees and that they greatly enjoyed seeing this type of "outsmarting the fox" strategy which seemed to show the world that American secret agencies were so crafty that they never even had to kill the bad guys. They just got the bad guys to kill each other off instead.
I have a feeling that the reality of it all is closer to this old fashion MIND GAME than this new "everyobody dies in a huge explosion" movie plot which is just TOO INCREDIBLE to believe any more.
After all, isn't it true that the CIA picks the very sharpest minds and tries to work it's deceptive manuevers without making it's presence known or seen under any condition if possible.
Look what we have now: The president and his staff are "outing" covert operators for the sake of partisan politics. In the real world, CIA is now synonymous with absolutely every nasty kind of activity like assasination, torture, and all kinds of generally disgusting behaviour. Many people are openly proposing to scrap the agency and start all over again.
While all this is going on Hollywood is using the "IMPOSSIBLE MISSION FORCE" as some sort of detached entity which uses impossible technology to perform impossible feats in an impossibly stupid human tragedy plot.
So for the sake of those in this forum who are interested, I would like to ask our resident secret agent "Twigsnapper" (who has now effectively halfway outed himself), if he watches modern day spy movies, and if so which of these movies comes closer to the truth, -both nowadays and in the past.
I'm sure many of us would be pleased to hear his take on what has been potrayed as "His type of lifestyle". Both in the past and nowadays "providing that he still has enough insider knowledge of such modern tactics".
Of course my personal favorite in all these movies was Arnold Schwatzanegger's "TRUE LIES". It even had an honest romantic scheme that may not have been so far from the truth after all. There is that one line in the movie that made me fall off my chair with laughter. (when the bad guys shows Arnold an MX warhead and asks him if he knows what it is)
Anybody else want to comment here?
trickfox