![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/pete-buttigieg-mayor-pete-cia-asset-naval-intelligence-officer.jpg?itok=MUGwjh9j\")
<\/picture><\/a>Mayor Pete likes to talk a lot about his\u00a0deployment to Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0(more on that later), but he also spent some time in Iraq when he was working for McKinsey and Company as an energy, retail, economic development, and logistics consultant. He makes a passing reference to having been in a \u201csafe house in Iraq<\/a>\u201d in 2007, in his memoir\u00a0Shortest Way Home<\/em>. Indeed, Buttigieg spent time in\u00a0both Iraq and Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0while he was working with McKinsey and Company. This time period (2007-2010) also overlaps with his time as a Naval intelligence officer (2009-2017).<\/p>\nMcKinsey isn\u2019t just any global management consulting firm. They have a contract with the Department of Defense as part of a broader\u00a0Task Force on Business and Stability Operations<\/a>. This project was criticized by\u00a0Minnesota Congresswoman Betty McCollum<\/a>\u00a0in 2011, as an inappropriate use of military resources. Why, after all, is the military\u00a0being used<\/a>\u00a0to create an attractive investment and growth environment for American companies? One of the tasks carried out by the task force was to help\u00a0Kate Spade<\/a>\u00a0source raw materials for her handbags.<\/p>\n In 2009, McKinsey was given an\u00a0$18.6 million contract<\/a>\u00a0that expanded their work from Afghanistan into Iraq.<\/p>\n Pete refuses to answer questions about what he was doing with McKinsey during this period, citing a non-disclosure agreement that\u2019s over 10 years old. What we do know, however, is that Buttigieg was stationed in\u00a0Herat Province<\/a>\u00a0for part of his resum\u00e9-building tour of duty, where McKinsey was also very active.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, there aren\u2019t a lot of dots to connect here, but the dots we have are worth noticing. Just like it\u2019s worth noticing that Buttigieg found time to volunteer for Barack Obama\u2019s 2008 presidential campaign, Pat Bauer\u2019s Indiana gubernatorial campaign, and enlist in the United States Navy \u2013 all while he was still working at his high-powered consulting gig with McKinsey. He finally left McKinsey in 2010, when he launched his losing bid for Indiana State Treasurer.<\/p>\n The Navy Reserve\u2019s\u00a0direct commission officer program<\/a>\u00a0allows ambitious young professionals to pad their resum\u00e9 with military service (usually in intelligence and public affairs) without having to go through tedious processes like basic training or officer candidate school. Indeed, the program has men like Buttigieg in mind: Those who want to serve, but not so badly that they\u2019re going to put their civilian careers at risk to do so.<\/p>\n A highly competitive program, it receives thousands of applicants every year, accepting around a quarter of them.<\/p>\n This program has become de rigueur for a certain type of politically inclined social climber. Indeed, several senior members of the Trump Administration have used this program to add military service to their resum\u00e9s. Sean Spicer, Reince Pribus and Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie are just three within the Administration who have benefitted from this program. It\u2019s also popular with the rich and politically connected: George P. Bush, Hunter Biden, and Jimmy Pannetta are all alums.<\/p>\n The alums from this program form a tight-knit network within the government, including at the CIA, with many officers having served at Guantanamo. Buttigieg\u2019s former commander was once the chief linguist at Gitmo, according to his\u00a0LinkedIn page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Buttigieg likes to brag about his 119 trips outside the wire, but what was he actually doing on those missions? It\u2019s difficult to say, especially when his\u00a0DD-214 was left blank<\/a>.<\/p>\n What we do know is that Buttigieg was assigned to the Afghan Threat Finance Cell, whose ostensible purpose is combating the drug trade that exploded there after the American invasion in 2001. According to Buttigieg, while there he worked closely with\u00a0every civilian intelligence alphabet agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n There are other strange bullet points on Buttigieg\u2019s CV. Like the time he stopped off in Somaliland, a\u00a0de facto<\/em>\u00a0independent state from Somalia, and spent 24 hours interviewing government officials in 2008, before he was in the Navy. This escapade received a glowing, first-person report in the\u00a0New York Times<\/em><\/a>\u00a0that reads more like a carefully crafted press release than real journalism or op-ed.<\/p>\n One doesn\u2019t simply just hop over to Somaliland on a whim. It\u2019s a difficult place to get to, and once you get there, there\u2019s nothing going on. But Buttigieg made it in and was able to liaise with top government officials who just happened to be offering up their main port to AFRICOM, a boon that would certainly benefit the intelligence community Buttigieg later became cozy with.<\/p>\n Former CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen<\/a>\u00a0is a big-time backer of Mayor Pete. Known as \u201cthe sanctions guru,\u201d he crafted the sanctions the Obama Administration levied on Iran, North Korea and Russia. Cohen continues to appear before think tanks encouraging intervention in\u00a0Venezuela<\/a>. Other spook endorsements come from\u00a0Charlie Gilbert<\/a>, former deputy director of the CIA\u2019s\u00a0National Clandestine Service<\/a>, John Bair, former chief of staff of the CIA\u2019s Middle East Task Force, and\u00a0Dennis Bowden<\/a>, who spent 26 years in vaguely defined \u201cexecutive leadership positions\u201d in the CIA among other CIA bigwigs.\u00a0Robert Stasio<\/a>, former chief of operations at the NSA Cyber Center,\u00a0Robin Walker<\/a>, former deputy intelligence officer of the Director of National Intelligence and\u00a0William Wechsler<\/a>, former deputy assistant secretary for special ops at the Department of Defense are three spook backers of Mayor Pete outside of the CIA.<\/p>\n The Grayzone has an article that is little more than\u00a0a list of Mayor Pete\u2019s spook endorsements<\/a>, which also includes ties to USAID, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. The son of the president of Afghanistan is a\u00a0senior foreign policy advisor for his campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why Mayor Pete? Because much like the spook community\u2019s previous favorite,\u00a0President Barack Obama<\/a> (whose partisans continue rear guard action against the Trump Administration through the intel community), Pete is an empty slate with a thin resume and no convictions. His electoral appeal is mostly an imagined yearning of middle America for a gay Christian president, a bizarre fever dream of the media class.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, Pete\u2019s backers, be they spooks or not, do not seem to be taking \u201cno\u201d for an answer. Signs point toward the recent electoral debacle in Iowa as not the shambling disaster of an incompetent Democratic Party, but as a naked power grab.<\/p>\n For anyone unaware, the results of the Iowa caucuses took the better part of a week to resolve, thanks to technical difficulties stemming from an app used to tabulate and track voting.<\/p>\n The app maker, who claims they were caught with their pants down because the app wasn\u2019t stress tested (extremely unlikely, as anyone who has ever worked in tech will tell you),\u00a0has ties to both the Democratic Party and the Buttigieg campaign<\/a>.<\/p>\n Could the Iowa debacle be an intel operation?<\/p>\n Indeed, the debacle surrounding Shadow (the name of the app used to count and track votes during the Iowa caucuses) has all the marks of a psyop. Rather than fudging the vote numbers (which there is\u00a0evidence for at the esoteric state delegate equivalent level<\/a>, where delegates are actually decided), perhaps the goal was simply to allow Buttigieg to declare victory, reap the media whirlwind that results from winning the Iowa caucuses and prevent his chief rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, from doing the same.<\/p>\n Buttigieg\u2019s campaign was invested in Shadow<\/a>\u00a0to the tune of $42,500. Sadly for his campaign, New Hampshire\u2019s elections are more straightforward, with hacking protections firmly in place and thus, much harder to steal.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not necessary for Mayor Pete to be a card-carrying CIA agent or a registered asset with a handler straight out of a spy novel. It\u2019s simply sufficient for him to traffic in the same circles, share the same values and be on board with the program.<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be a spook to do a spook\u2019s job. For those who spend enough time in that world, it simply\u00a0becomes a matter of habit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/a>Pete Buttigieg: Navy Intelligence Officer<\/h2>\n
<\/picture><\/a>How exactly did Mayor Pete end up in the Navy? It\u2019s interesting for a man who touts his service so readily, that he\u2019s reticent to discuss it in any detail. This is no doubt related to the classified nature of his work, but it\u2019s probably also related to how he ended up in the Navy in the first place.<\/p>\n<\/a>Pete Buttigieg: Presidential Candidate<\/h2>\n
<\/picture><\/a>Buttigieg\u2019s endorsements likewise raise questions. Why, for example, does a who\u2019s who of spooks and coup plotters want the mayor of a small Indiana city to be the leader of the free world?<\/p>\n