How literal are the Q clues for Podesta, Rome, etc supposed to be taken?

A bit of vague googling about Podesta and Georgia got me to this Harper's Magazine article:

"The Bloom Comes Off the Georgian Rose

In the aftermath of Georgia’s presidential elections, questions emerge about Mikhail Saakashvili’s support for jihadist operations in southern Russia, and about what the United States knew"

"Saakashvili was happy to host an ever-growing contingent of U.S. intelligence teams from both the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command. Georgia was an ideal home away from home for American spooks, thanks to its adjacency to Iran (no visa is required for Iranians to travel there) and to Russia’s perpetually fraught Caucasus region. In no time at all, according to a former CIA official, Georgian mountaintops began sprouting antennae-crowned NSA listening posts. Alongside them loomed Israeli radars, purchased by the Georgian government as part of a booming arms trade between Tel Aviv and Tbilisi."

https://archive.is/qjDlv