5 ms·

The more I read about the CIA the more I am convinced it either needs to be massively restructured and reorganized, or removed completely. Reading histories of

The more I read about the CIA the more I am convinced it either needs to be massively restructured and reorganized, or removed completely. Reading histories of the organization I see it has consistently been incompetent and destructive, causing many failures which have then backfired on the US. Not to mention the many characters in its history who put their own ideological biases above the good of the country, which contributed significantly to the aforementioned failures. The Iraq War shows that this culture was still the case in the early 2000s, as intelligence was ignored and instead higher ups in the agency were used or themselves pushed intelligence which was not supported for political and ideological reasons. If the intelligence is going to be manipulated or ignored then as I see it there's no point of collecting it because it's not going to be used accurately anyway. As the US Intelligence Community these days is massive I am sure the other agencies can pick up the many other roles of the CIA. I'll edit this to add a comment more relevant to the article that there perhaps is a culture of arrogance at the CIA because of a lack of consequence for their mistakes.

theandrewbailey 5y ago
Even on the surface, when has giving arms to a third world paramilitary group ever worked out in the long run?
- jesussaves 5y ago
  It worked out for the 13 colonies.
uap 5y ago
> many failures which have then backfired on the US Sure they have mistakes, like the failures in this article and many others, but to claim they are in general harmful to US interests...I think it probably just appears that way. Because I think they probably serve the capitalist and mercantilist interests of the US, which probably differ in appearance from the more symbolic or mythological appearances of what the US is. So on the outside, the idea of patriotism is quite sentimental, perhaps on the inside it's all about capital and mercantile power. So things which seem to violate the more sentimental and mythological idea of the US and patriotism, perhaps are actually wins from a mercantile or capitalist perspective....or maybe they are just failing on that mission as well I don't know.
- throwrqX 5y ago
  I think overall they generally are harmful to US interests. What is the CIA most known for? Overthrowing countries and supporting dictators because of their past anti communist paranoia. What have been their major successes? I would say the regular intelligence work they do, collecting intelligence from various agents around the world and in general HUMINT. It's their clandestine and paramilitary work that's caused the biggest problems in my view, and not just in a strategic sense, but in a ideological way too, you can excuse regular spying in a free country because it's obviously necessary to maintain accurate information on any potential adversary, but coups in countries that go against US interests is a lot harder to justify in an ideological sense, especially if you want to say that one of the core American ideals is "freedom". This is something in my view that the US shouldn't do at all, and hence the need to purge the CIA of bureaucrats and others would push for this kind of action because it's what the CIA is historically known to do.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    [dead]

theandrewbailey 5y ago

Even on the surface, when has giving arms to a third world paramilitary group ever worked out in the long run?

jesussaves 5y ago
It worked out for the 13 colonies.

uap 5y ago

> many failures which have then backfired on the US Sure they have mistakes, like the failures in this article and many others, but to claim they are in general harmful to US interests...I think it probably just appears that way. Because I think they probably serve the capitalist and mercantilist interests of the US, which probably differ in appearance from the more symbolic or mythological appearances of what the US is. So on the outside, the idea of patriotism is quite sentimental, perhaps on the inside it's all about capital and mercantile power. So things which seem to violate the more sentimental and mythological idea of the US and patriotism, perhaps are actually wins from a mercantile or capitalist perspective....or maybe they are just failing on that mission as well I don't know.

throwrqX 5y ago
I think overall they generally are harmful to US interests. What is the CIA most known for? Overthrowing countries and supporting dictators because of their past anti communist paranoia. What have been their major successes? I would say the regular intelligence work they do, collecting intelligence from various agents around the world and in general HUMINT. It's their clandestine and paramilitary work that's caused the biggest problems in my view, and not just in a strategic sense, but in a ideological way too, you can excuse regular spying in a free country because it's obviously necessary to maintain accurate information on any potential adversary, but coups in countries that go against US interests is a lot harder to justify in an ideological sense, especially if you want to say that one of the core American ideals is "freedom". This is something in my view that the US shouldn't do at all, and hence the need to purge the CIA of bureaucrats and others would push for this kind of action because it's what the CIA is historically known to do.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  [dead]