I see your point but I still refuse to believe "Our last guy got found out, here's his spy job, his spy communications line, his spy car with which you go to the same spy house he did. You also lack 9/10 requirements for having this job on paper. Watch out for moles, the only reason we can imagine that the last guy got found out." is real and no argument can convince me of this for reasons stated above. I'm going full conspiracy theorist here, the truth is too horrifying to me and I instead opt to construct some shadowy cabal that pulls the strings and put this on as a front. I mean what, we couldn't forge some papers here?
I'd retire clothes for like 3 months when I was a drunk teenager stealing road signs for funsies just in case a witness description of "Black hoodie, jeans, average height man (probably)" got out and somebody else saw it and connected it to me revealing I was drunk of my ass near location X at the time. If I believe this, this would've put me in like top 1% of removed, apparently. I refuse to believe entire governemnts get toppled and the course of history changed by a bunch of dudes who couldn't get on the level of OPSEC of an alcoholic teenager, sorry. I now consider the CIA a front organisation putting out chaff to distract from the actual agency, the Even-More-Central-Intelligence-Agency (EMCIA), which is so good at their job none of us know about it
I very much agree that what's being described are just comical levels of incompetence. Small children could run a more competent spy organization than this.
Resident spies tend to be easier to identify. You start off by assuming everyone wearing a suit and lanyard at an embassy is intelligence and you’d be correct 70% of the time. The guys who are gun running, meeting monarchs to traffic children, meeting friends of warlords and drug lords - they tend to be less identifiable.
You give them too much credit. I mean the KGB’s intelligence was the most sophisticated in the world and the USSR got toppled. No amount of intelligence is going to save you from incompetence and malice in more powerful positions. Not to mention, the CIA was communicating with sources through fake websites with passwords hidden in the page elements lol
I see your point but I still refuse to believe "Our last guy got found out, here's his spy job, his spy communications line, his spy car with which you go to the same spy house he did. You also lack 9/10 requirements for having this job on paper. Watch out for moles, the only reason we can imagine that the last guy got found out." is real and no argument can convince me of this for reasons stated above. I'm going full conspiracy theorist here, the truth is too horrifying to me and I instead opt to construct some shadowy cabal that pulls the strings and put this on as a front. I mean what, we couldn't forge some papers here?
I'd retire clothes for like 3 months when I was a drunk teenager stealing road signs for funsies just in case a witness description of "Black hoodie, jeans, average height man (probably)" got out and somebody else saw it and connected it to me revealing I was drunk of my ass near location X at the time. If I believe this, this would've put me in like top 1% of removed, apparently. I refuse to believe entire governemnts get toppled and the course of history changed by a bunch of dudes who couldn't get on the level of OPSEC of an alcoholic teenager, sorry. I now consider the CIA a front organisation putting out chaff to distract from the actual agency, the Even-More-Central-Intelligence-Agency (EMCIA), which is so good at their job none of us know about it
I very much agree that what's being described are just comical levels of incompetence. Small children could run a more competent spy organization than this.
Resident spies tend to be easier to identify. You start off by assuming everyone wearing a suit and lanyard at an embassy is intelligence and you’d be correct 70% of the time. The guys who are gun running, meeting monarchs to traffic children, meeting friends of warlords and drug lords - they tend to be less identifiable.
You give them too much credit. I mean the KGB’s intelligence was the most sophisticated in the world and the USSR got toppled. No amount of intelligence is going to save you from incompetence and malice in more powerful positions. Not to mention, the CIA was communicating with sources through fake websites with passwords hidden in the page elements lol