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I think it’s a very fair question. Just look at the Bay of Pigs intelligence operation. You have US intelligence agencies organizing/training a bunch of Cuban

I think it’s a very fair question. Just look at the Bay of Pigs intelligence operation. You have US intelligence agencies organizing/training a bunch of Cuban dissidents/exiles in Miami, to launch a paramilitary operation to over throw Castro with the backing of the US military/intelligence agencies and then allowed this group to get slaughtered (with no heads up they were withdrawing support). Is that just incompetence or deliberate action. To this day it’s a fair question, I personally conclude it’s both and I call the mixture of incompetence/deliberate action...politics.

stevenwoo 8y ago
Couldn't this be explained by the US intelligence agencies just being bad at reading the general public in Cuba, the invasion could not have succeeded with such a small force without a general uprising and IIRC the invasion was supported by both Eisenhower and Kennedy so to claim it was some deliberate failure on the part of the USA needs extraordinary proof of conspiracy including both presidents - the US government has supported many other coups around the world. It seems more like the intelligence agency trusted their Cuban allies enthusiasm and reading of the situation too much.
aylmao 8y ago
Or the Iraq intelligence operation, which led to the Iraq war and a lot of the present-day instability in the region. There was wrong intelligence that was believed-in, and right intelligence (claiming there were no massive stockpiles of WMDs) that was dismissed [1][2]. [1]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9937516/Iraq-war-the-greatest-intelligence-failure-in-living-memory.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/13/the-pre-war-intelligence-on-iraq-wrong-or-hyped-by-the-bush-white-house/?utm_term=.579c68912125 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/...
- clubm8 8y ago
  Plus Syria undeniably posesses WMD (sarin) yet we don't invade. Almost like WMD was a pretense and not something that forced our hand...
  - grkvlt 8y ago
    Or, just maybe, the USA feels that today is not a good day to start a war with Russia?
    - clubm8 8y ago
      > Or, just maybe, the USA feels that today is not a good day to start a war with Russia? Is telling the middle east they should either build a full blown nuke (ala NK) or allow the Russians to build a base are ways to avoid invasion the message we want to send? I agree as a practical matter the Russian base plays heavily into our decisions but maybe we shouldn't incentivize small countries to allow them to...

stevenwoo 8y ago

Couldn't this be explained by the US intelligence agencies just being bad at reading the general public in Cuba, the invasion could not have succeeded with such a small force without a general uprising and IIRC the invasion was supported by both Eisenhower and Kennedy so to claim it was some deliberate failure on the part of the USA needs extraordinary proof of conspiracy including both presidents - the US government has supported many other coups around the world. It seems more like the intelligence agency trusted their Cuban allies enthusiasm and reading of the situation too much.

aylmao 8y ago

Or the Iraq intelligence operation, which led to the Iraq war and a lot of the present-day instability in the region. There was wrong intelligence that was believed-in, and right intelligence (claiming there were no massive stockpiles of WMDs) that was dismissed [1][2]. [1]: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9937516/Iraq-war-the-greatest-intelligence-failure-in-living-memory.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/9... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/13/the-pre-war-intelligence-on-iraq-wrong-or-hyped-by-the-bush-white-house/?utm_term=.579c68912125 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/...

clubm8 8y ago
Plus Syria undeniably posesses WMD (sarin) yet we don't invade. Almost like WMD was a pretense and not something that forced our hand...
- grkvlt 8y ago
  Or, just maybe, the USA feels that today is not a good day to start a war with Russia?
  - clubm8 8y ago
    > Or, just maybe, the USA feels that today is not a good day to start a war with Russia? Is telling the middle east they should either build a full blown nuke (ala NK) or allow the Russians to build a base are ways to avoid invasion the message we want to send? I agree as a practical matter the Russian base plays heavily into our decisions but maybe we shouldn't incentivize small countries to allow them to...