The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — This country and the world seemed to be perched on the edge of a precipice, a double edged sword. While the world has appeared to be lurching toward autocracy in recent years, it appears quite possible that there is actually a way, a chance, to turn this entire thing around in Ukraine and the United States — in a very short period of time.

If the right people listen to the right people, we could be rid of Putin in the next two weeks, if not sooner. That would set off a chain reaction that could literally send democracy on the march around the world, including here, landing directly in Trump’s house, where lying like Putin has become as routine as cheating at golf. There is evidence that many Republican voters are cooling off on Trump, and even Congressional Democrats are moving away from Trump’s rhetoric supporting Russia and its dictator president, Vladimir Putin.

The people of Ukraine have taken up arms to help their defense forces fight off the most unprecedented invasion in European in the past 80 years, and their efforts appear to be working to slow the advance of Russian forces toward Kyiv, the capital city, according to on the ground reporting by The New York Times and other news outlets with reporters in country.

The People of Ukraine Take Up Arms and Slow the Advance of Russia’s Unprecedented Invasion

This Will Not End Well for Putin

“To feed Cold War dreams, Putin spun a nuclear nightmare. He invaded a peaceful democracy, Ukraine, vowing consequences ‘you have never seen in your entire history’ to those who interfered,” wrote columnist Maureen Dowd in Saturday’s New York Times.

“Even by his logic, I don’t see how this ends well,” The Times’s Steven Lee Myers, a former Moscow correspondent who wrote The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin, told her. “He conquers Ukraine and people declare him the tsar of all Russian lands? That’s not going to happen. There’s not even cheering in Russia like there was after the annexation of Crimea, which was done with almost no bloodshed. And I doubt a majority of Russians believe the propaganda about the imminent Nazi threat.” (Especially since the country is run by a Jewish comedian turned courageous president, Volodymyr Zelensky.)

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“As President Biden marshaled world opinion against Putin, Trump offered nauseating praise of this murderer. Like the thug he so admires, Trump let his fragile ego and world-class delusions distort reality. Trump politicized the Covid response in a dangerous way. And, unable to accept the designation of Loser, he helped spread the lies and misinformation that led to Jan. 6. In a breathtaking betrayal, the president of the United States tried to scuttle the democracy he was running; Trump abandoned the Constitution he was sworn to protect.”

CBS and the CIA

Then first thing Sunday morning, “CBS This Morning” carried a well timed story about a retired CIA agent, Ric Prado, who spent 24 years with the Central Intelligence Agency. He has written a book called “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior.”

It begins in Cuba, when Fidel Castro came to power and seized the Prados’ family coffee roasting business.

It turns out Prado was the first CIA agent on the ground in Honduras in the 1980s training the so-called “Contras” when the Regan administration was trying to fight a Communist takeover of Nicaragua by the Ortega brothers.

I got a couple of breaks in that story back when, stories I tell in my book, Jump On The Bus: Make Democracy Work Again.

When that cause went wrong, and the “arms for hostages deal” became the worst scandal of the Reagan years, Prado transitioned out, his cover never blown. He was never publicly identified, and later was assigned to track a rising financier of terrorism named Osama bin Laden. Prado had never heard of him, but he had heard of the CIA operative who had been watching bin Laden.

“There’s only one Billy Waugh in the world,” Prado said.

Now 92, Waugh is a legend in the world of black ops. He took the CIA’s first surveillance photos of bin Laden, who back then was living in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.

“If you’re close enough to take those kind of pictures, are you close enough to shoot him?” CBS News national security correspondent David Martin asked.

“Yes, sir,” said Waugh. “And we requested it many times. You can put that down. I could have killed him every day of the week.”

Martin asked Prado, “Was there any thought to trying to take bin Laden out?”

“Yes, of course,” he replied. “Unfortunately, the political fortitude was not there yet. We could have kidnapped him at that time, but we were not allowed to do so.”

“Obviously if bin Laden had been taken off the landscape, a lot of history would have been very different. But the CIA can’t just go around the world kidnapping every fledgling terrorist,” Martin asked.

“No, they can’t,” Prado said.

Martin asked: “So, when you say there wasn’t the political will, should there have been the political will?”

“I think so,” Prado said. “I’m not saying we should have killed bin Laden at that time. But abducting him and getting him into interrogation and see what he could cough up, I think that would have been something doable and justifiable.”

“How do you justify a target being taken out by a drone, but they’re abhorred by the fact that you’re willing to put a bullet in the same single person’s head?” he said. “That’s why I retired. My time had come.”

Martin said, “A lot of people are going to listen to you and say, ‘There’s a great American.’ And there are going to be people who listen to you and say, ‘Whoa, who let this guy loose?'”

“Or who didn’t let that guy loose?” Prado said. “And what would have been the difference? If we would’ve taken out bin Laden when he was in Khartoum, chances are 9/11 would not have happened.”

Yeah, and if the U.S. Supreme Court had not handed the 2000 election to George W. Bush, it might not have happened either, but that’s my story for another day I’ve already written.

Born in Cuba and sent as a youth to live in America after the rise of Castro, Prado became a longtime undercover operative for U.S. intelligence, defending American ideals against insurgents, terrorists, and traffickers of people, drugs, and illegal weapons. He tells his story in a new memoir, “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior” (St. Martin’s Press), to be published on March 1.

We have emailed Prado questions about whether Putin should be taken out now, and asking for his thoughts on who could be in possession of the Havana Syndrome weapon we wrote about and CBS’s “60 Minutes” talked about last Sunday.

Havana Syndrome Clearly Caused by Directed Energy Weapon: Will the American People Be Told the Truth About Who is Responsible?

Stay tuned for answers. His publisher is overnighting us the book and has forwarded our email questions to Prado. We will see if they let him respond.

NBC Reports on Russian Opposition in Ukraine

Meanwhile back to Ukraine, Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” led off his broadcast on Sunday morning with this story.

“Good Sunday morning — Overnight, Russians continued bombing Kyiv and other cities and moved into Kharkiv, Ukraine’s 2nd largest city. But the big story right now is the fierce resistance by Ukrainian fighters, who have bloodied the Russians’ noses and slowed their advance.”

See more news links on my Facebook page.

Maybe we should bring Prado out of retirement just this once, to take out Putin? I’ve not always agreed with the sometimes horribly botched plans of the CIA. But this might just be the one time they could fulfill their mission, to save American Democracy and help democracy spread around the world.

And while you’re at it Ric, maybe that Havana Syndrome weapon invented by Naval Intelligence 30 years ago might somehow show up on the 18th green at Mar-a-Lago one day soon?

The world would be a better place without a Putin — or a Trump.

The people of Ukraine, Russia and the United States would celebrate, and even China would then be on the defensive.

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