Can we assume white knights are in charge here?
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?
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").
The wars will continue until the economy improves.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
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.