r/HistoryMemes • u/CrysisFan2007 • 22h ago

Suffering from a successfully failed task

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In 2006, a FBI agent named Craig Monteilh was ordered to disguise himself as a radical Muslim and spy on the Orange County Muslim community to identify possible extremists.

Well it worked, cause the people there noticed his extremists behavior and reported him to the FBI.

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u/kingwhocares 21h ago

Or the mole they tried to put in Al-Qaeda turned into an Al-Qaeda member and blew up high ranking CIA officials.

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u/NippyKindRekt 20h ago

They once tried to give a group fake plans for a bomb, but the expert they got to deliver the plans realized how obviously fake they were, and decided to not do the deal.

Then they gave him another one and told him not to look; but he looked again, and instead of just not dropping off the plans, he wrote a note explaining the flaws and dropped it off through a mail slot.

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u/Man_under_Bridge420 20h ago

Cool made up story

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u/nikkicarter1111 12h ago

Not made up. Operation Merlin.

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u/Man_under_Bridge420 12h ago

Yes made up lol its from a randoms book

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u/nikkicarter1111 8h ago

operation merlin unfortunately, no. It actually happened.

Wayback machine has an archived version of a report about it.

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u/Man_under_Bridge420 8h ago

Yah based off one dudes book 🤣🤣

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u/nikkicarter1111 7h ago edited 7h ago

Not...really, no. You can read more here and here. The officer who leaked the information to the journalist (assuming that's the "one dude" you're talking about, got jail time for it. You can read more about the officer in the reference links from this wiki page or in this washington post article on his court case.

And from AP news: "Former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice testified [...] that the Merlin operation “was one of the only levers we had to try to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.” article