> faulty intelligence is to blame for the Iraq war, it's difficult for me to encourage less intelligence surrounding foreign intelligence gathering
How about - how would you rather spend your money, spying on foreigners living in destitution, or fixing our roads? The international spy network the US maintains is probably a paltry drop in the bucket of the preposterous defense budget in this country, but honestly anything to curtail that black hole of taxpayer dollars is a win in my book.
If we weren't destroying the lives of millions around the globe with our imperialism, we wouldn't have enemies to suicide bomb us with planes to require massive spy networks to try to catch American dissenters planning to commit jihad against us. The military industrial complex only exists insofar as the American people are complacent to being global police forcing their will upon anyone who does not fall in line with what the US wants. And that is after we already have trade sanctions that can decimate countries overnight.
This isn't 1970 anymore. We don't need to have a dick waving contest with the next largest nuclear arsenal trying to ruin the lives of billions of people in a juvenile game to show who is the coolest kid, whose god is the best, or whose economic model should rule the world. Maybe its time to just back the fuck off and take our tendrils out of every nation on Earth for once and maybe try to be good to our fellow man.
* So what about every country in Europe being suicide bombed? Are they just complicit?*
The countries with the worst problems with Islamic extremism are the ones most closely allied with the US war machine. The UK and France, for example. Consider the smaller eastern states, Scandinavian countries etc: much less of an issue for them.
Usually when you dig into the motives of Islamic people engaging in political murders it's triggered by western wars. E.g. the Charlie Hebdo attackers went after cartoonists, probably because they were easy targets. But interviews with them showed their path to radicalisation started with seeing what was going on at Abu Ghraib.
About ten minutes before the explosions, a threatening email was sent to the Swedish Security Service and the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT).[9] It referred to the presence of Swedish troops in Afghanistan and Swedish artist Lars Vilks' drawings of Muhammad as a roundabout dog:[3] "Now your children, daughters and sisters will die in the same way our brothers and sisters die. Our actions will speak for themselves.
.... so less of an issue but not zero of an issue.
For the second article, I concede that it doesn't mention any political motivation (I don't count purely religious motivation like "i hate cartoons" as political). Although, as the suspects ended up dead, it may be that there was one and we would never know.
"how would you rather spend your money, spying on foreigners living in destitution, or fixing our roads? "
This is in logical terms a wrong dichotomy, but anyway a couple of points:
1) having information about foreigners living in destitution is also called "awareness of the world", and it would be a great help e.g. in development aid. A lot of aid money is wasted simply because those who want and try to send help do not understand at all the people (often in destitution) they try to help. This is not the point of foreign intelligence, of course, I just say that if intelligence agencies could contribute to an understanding about the life in destitution, they would serve all humanity.
2) I don't think the US spy agencies spend any real effort on foreigners living in destitution. You maybe have an incorrect perception of life in poor countries. A vast majority of people may be poor, but there are still also middle class and wealthy people. Targeted intelligence operations usually concentrate on individuals of political or economical significance. Osama bin Laden, for instance, lived in relative abundance. Mass surveillance on the other hand mostly targets middle class people: those who access the Internet, use Facebook, use a credit card to purchase things. Not the poor people in destitution (even though mobile phones also have become important for them).
As someone who takes the train, I'd absolutely rather see money being used to maintain Americas military and political superiority over funding another highway to schlep people around the 'burbs.
Let me ask you: do you think it is better or worse that we _know_ about ISIS?
Mind you, Obama knows enough about ISIS that he is confident to keep troops out of the Middle East. Would he have that confidence if it weren't for the spy network?
Or would it be closer to a George Bush ordeal with Iraq War. George Bush was working off of a CIA that was cut by 20% to 30% by Clinton. He was practically flying blind. (Yes, when you lose 25% of your _workers_ between 1990 and 2000, the CIA will begin to make some pretty crappy decisions)
Here's another question. Do you think Israel would have continued to stand down against Iran if it weren't for the intelligence sharing programs between US and Israel? Intelligence stops wars. Intelligence tempers decisions. When leaders fly blind, they instead make hasty decisions and over-react to threats. Lets say the US stops spying on Iran... what do you think Israel will do without any information?
Hell, there's a reason why the US spies on Israel, and Israel spies on us. Even allies spy on each other: its the most reliable source of information. Even _with_ information sharing agreements, countries will spy on each other behind each other's backs.
Frankly, I'd want to know what Israel's plans are if we stopped giving them information. Don't you? I mean, yeah, we support them and all... but lets hope they're not gonna do anything crazy (like... use their nukes, or something).
Or do you think Israel will actually tell us these details, even if they are our Allies? Nah man, the only way you make decisions as a leader is to spy on other leaders, figure out what they're thinking, and then make plans based on that.
Intelligence does jack diddly crap. If a spy spies on you, you'll never know your entire life.
CIA moves a bit beyond "intelligence" work with Seal Team 6 and the trigger on drone strikes. CIA is closer to "Paramilitary". But the pure HUMINT work that the CIA does is extremely important to understanding the world.
Can we assume white knights are in charge here?
Elect a good president in 2016. Lets keep the white knights in charge. Warmongerers are definitely vying for power.
With the presidency comes command and control of the largest, strongest, most advanced nuclear missile stock on the planet. And control of the largest navy. And control of the largest army.
Believe me, intelligence is needed to keep those guys pointing their guns at the right targets.
Isn't that the problem? Good by the definition of the individual voting? Good by the definition of a particular belief system? Good by being marginally "better" than the opponents?
"Good" isn't explicit enough to actually provide information to make a decision. (Also, it's a pretty limited palette of "goodness" to select from).
> Lets keep the white knights in charge
Are the White Knights in charge right now? They all seem to be embracing war by action, if not by word.
> intelligence is needed to keep those guys pointing their guns at the right targets.
Once again, who are the "right targets". Is it ISIS, is it Al Qaeda, is it the next disillusioned group of malcontents who are sold on the propaganda of their leaders?
Do you not realize that the flip-side of this argument justifies the behavior of the "enemy" as well as it justifies the behavior of the US?
How about we try to look to a solution where we stop pointing guns at "targets"? (I presume by "targets" you mean "humans").
How about - how would you rather spend your money, spying on foreigners living in destitution, or fixing our roads? The international spy network the US maintains is probably a paltry drop in the bucket of the preposterous defense budget in this country, but honestly anything to curtail that black hole of taxpayer dollars is a win in my book.
If we weren't destroying the lives of millions around the globe with our imperialism, we wouldn't have enemies to suicide bomb us with planes to require massive spy networks to try to catch American dissenters planning to commit jihad against us. The military industrial complex only exists insofar as the American people are complacent to being global police forcing their will upon anyone who does not fall in line with what the US wants. And that is after we already have trade sanctions that can decimate countries overnight.
This isn't 1970 anymore. We don't need to have a dick waving contest with the next largest nuclear arsenal trying to ruin the lives of billions of people in a juvenile game to show who is the coolest kid, whose god is the best, or whose economic model should rule the world. Maybe its time to just back the fuck off and take our tendrils out of every nation on Earth for once and maybe try to be good to our fellow man.