From Newsgroup: rec.aviation.military

On 7/17/25 18:44, Leroy N. Soetoro wrote:

https://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2025/07/12/so-what-were- our-genuine-enemies-up-to-while-brennan-headed-the-cia-n2660255

rCL(In Aug. 2015) an unmarked U.S. government plane landed at an airstrip in Havana, carryingrCaJohn Brennan, the director of the C.I.A. Brennan was there to meet with Alejandro Castro-Espin (Raul CastrorCOs son, the KGB- trained head of CubarCOs counterintelligence service, who authored a book titled rCLU.S.-Empire of TerrorrCY) and discuss increasing intelligence cooperation between the two countries. Brennan considered CubarCOs spy agencies the most capable in Latin America, and hoped to work with them against drug cartels and terrorist networks.rCY

Brennan definitely had a point. Thanks to the CIArCOs historic penchant for hiring and promoting people like John Brennan, CastrorCOs DGI and DI has historically run rings around the CIA, while guffawing.

But it gets even rCLbetter:

rCLBrennanrCOs talks with Alejandro Castro took place at a discreet government
guesthouse, where a day of formal negotiations was followed by a banquet featuring a spit-roasted pig. U.S. officials said that, during the talks, Cuban leaders made it clear that they respected the C.I.A.rCY

I bet! But rCLrespectrCY probably isnrCOt the proper wordrCounless The Pink Panther rCLrespectsrCY inspector Closseau and The Roadrunner rCLrespectsrCY Wile
E. Coyote.rCY The word rCLappreciaterCY fits much better. Perhaps these (thoroughly-documented) historic items will help us understand this
unbounded appreciation:

In 1987, Cuban intelligence officer Florentino Aspillaga defected in
Prague and revealed that every single Cuban agent (four dozen of them) the CIA had recruited to spy on the Castro regime since 1962 was a double
agent controlled personally by Fidel Castro. Now backtracking a few years:

rCLWerCOve infiltrated CastrorCOs guerrilla group in the Sierra Mountains. The
Castro brothers and Ernesto rCyCherCO Guevara have no affiliations with any Communists whatsoever.rCY (Havana CIA station Chief Jim Noel, sneering in typical CIA, Ivy league blueblood manner at tacky warnings from Cuban rCLMcCarthyite deplorablesrCY in Nov. 1958.

(In fact, all of three of these hardcore Stalinists poised to take over
Cuba had a KGB-handler named Nikolai Leonev since 1954!)

Now letrCOs fast forward to April 2015, just a few weeks prior to BrennanrCOs ultra-secret trip to Havana:

rCLCuba is not a threat to the United StatesrCaThey donrCOt implicate our national security in any wayrCaThe government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period; and the government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not
support acts of international terrorism in the future.rCY (President Obama after meeting with Raul Castro in Panama and recommending that Stalinist
Cuba be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, April 14th, 2015.).

Presumably the head of the CIA at the time John Brennan, who had been a
close national security advisor to Barack Obama since his 2008 campaign, signed-off on (and maybe even encouraged) ObamarCOs decision to whitewash
and legitimize the Castro-Family-Crime-Syndicate. Never mind that this whitewash required taking one of modern historyrCOs most infamous liars at his word.

John Brennan is just totally corrupt.

But in fact, only a few weeks before ObamarCOs (and presumably BrennanrCOs) giddy acceptance of CastrorCOs promise (rCLcross my heart and hope to die!rCY),
Castro got caught red-handed supplying Chinese-made arms to the Western hemisphererCOs oldest, biggest and most murderous terror-group: ColombiarCOs FARC. The terror-death toll from these Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) exceeds 200,000, and includes more U.S. citizens than were murdered by ISIS.

So maybe it was a mere coincidence that the very week Obama (with
presumably BrennanrCOs support) planned to remove Cuba as a terror-sponsor the mainstream media (especially CNN) blacked-out any mention of this
blatant terror-sponsorship by Cuba in our own backyard?

You see, amigos: In February 2015, Colombian authorities found 99 missile heads, 100 tons of gunpowder, 2.6 million detonators, and over 3,000 artillery shells hidden under rice sacks in a ship bound from Red China to Cuba that docked in the port of Cartagena Colombia.

Most Cuba-watchers immediately guessed what was up. And crackerjack
Colombian (NOT CNN or New York Times, heaven forbid!) reporters quickly investigated and exposed the Castro-regimerCOs terror-sponsoring scheme. In brief:

rCo The arms were from a Chinese manufacturer named Norinco and the
recipient was a Cuban company named Tecnoimport.

rCo But the ship stopped in the Colombian ports of Cartagena and Baranquilla (where the FARC is based.)

rCo ColombiarCOs crackerjack newspaper El Espectador also reported that many Norinco-manufactured arms had already been captured from FARC guerrillas
over the past ten years. This proliferation of Cuba-smuggled Chinese arms
to the terrorist FARC got so bad that in 2007-08 the Colombian authorities sent a diplomatic protest note to the Chinese.

This awkward information at such an awkward time, needless to say, might
have hampered ObamarCOs plan (with presumably BrennanrCOs support) to cleanse the Castro regime from any taint of terror-sponsorshiprCoat least for people with half-a-brain.

But shouldnrCOt the head of (probably) the worldrCOs largest and most lavishlyrCofunded intelligence agency (the CIA) have been aware of this
Cuban terror-sponsorship on our very doorstep? So how could he possibly sign-off on ObamarCOs howler that rCLthe government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period?rCY

Two years earlier (with John Brennan the recently appointed CIA director
by Obama) Panamanian authorities discovered unregistered Russian missile parts and actual MIG jets hidden in a North Korean ship that had just left terror-sponsoring Cuba and was bound for terror-sponsoring North Korea through the Panama Canal. All the Russian made contraband was hidden under sacks of Cuban sugar. An investigation by a U.N. panel (no less!)
concluded that the Cuban smuggling was a blatant violation of
international sanctions.)

ShouldnrCOt a CIA director have been aware of this illegal, blatant and repeated smuggling of arms from one terror-sponsor to another in our own backyard?

Of course. But looking the other way was very convenient for de-
classifying the blatantly guilty party from the list of terror-sponsors--a condition Castro demanded before he would deign to allow Obama to
legitimize and enrich his regime. The Castros, you see, knew full well how Obama desperately craved the rCLopening to CubarCY for his rCLlegacy.rCY

So they had a ball! They played him like a fiddle, humiliating his rCLnegotiatorsrCO (mostly Pajama-Boy Ben Rhodes) at every turn and absolutely mercilessly, while snickering.

Apparently, BrennanrCOs Cuba trip had results. To wit:

rCLCuba and the United States signed an agreement to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and drug traffickingrCaA delegation of Cuban government national security officials recently toured the PentagonrCOs counter-drug center in Key West (in May, 2016)rCo a first, signaling a nascent effort in U.S.-Cuban security cooperation. They got a briefing on the work that has been described as SouthcomrCOs command center in the war on drugs.rCY

The result of this Brennan-encouraged rCLcooperation?rCY

rCLPanamanian authorities (NOT, U.S. authorities!) on Saturday (May, 18, 2019) intercepted 46 suitcases containing an estimated $90 million in
illegal drugs on a cargo ship that arrived from a Cuban port and was en
route to Istanbul, Turkey. The suitcases contained 1,517 packages of drugs hidden in a container declared as containing charcoal.

Needless to add: no mainstream U.S. media portal (not even Fox!) bothered reporting on this blockbuster embarrassment to the Obama/Brennan
rCLnational securityrCY team.

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