> Former President Truman, whose Administration established the C.I.A. in 1947, said in 1963 that by then he saw “something about the way the C.I.A. has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic positions, and I feel that we need to correct it.”
> And President Kennedy, as the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of his Administration that he “wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
Look at the Bay of Pigs failure. The CIA is not some omnipotent power that topples stable countries via a few quite words while enjoying cigars and brandy.
The CIA doesn’t topple regimens itself, it backs locals who do.
Not that different than what the US is doing in Ukraine right now. Not “toppling” this time, rather “backing” and last I checked lots of Americans seem to approve of our meddling.
My take is you either shit or get off the pot. The US decides to either “meddle” in other countries or not.
If you decide to “meddle”, well, you also need to accept that things can go sideways and the locals and the US end up in a worse situation than if they avoided getting involved in the first place.
Unless you have a crystal ball, nobody can tell what the outcome of meddling will be.
If you read the wikipedia page (1), there are 37 sub sections under history. Almost every one is a total failure, both from an international and a purely US-interests view. Some of the biggest threats to US interests today (Iran, Pakistan, North Korea) and biggest embarrassments (Cuba) are the direct result of the CIA bungling.
Few other institutions could survive even 1 such farce. One has to wonder, if the CIA continues because no one has noticed such incompetence. Or if there is some more sinister reason...
This only looks at failures as it is very hard to attribute success in such cases. For example you list North Korea as a failure, but American involvement there is the only reason why South Korea exists and we don’t have one giant North Korea.
The fact of the matter is that the Cold War was won, and the CIA was a major part of it. You could analyze every coup that was started in Latin America as a mistake, but you can’t really say what was the alternative
Pakistan is a threat ? Pakistan is an ally, with active defense funding from the US (and China), whom CIA & co have always used as a proxy to hit India.
I listened to Jordan Peterson's interview with Stella Morris (married to Julian Assange) today, and that in combination with everything Snowden has talked about has really got me feeling pretty uneasy about the state of the US gov't. I guess it has been easy to turn a blind eye because it doesn't affect me, or at least it hasn't yet.
At home we use a phrase from an interview with a EU politician that was done BEFORE the ukraine war and asked about the US/CIA warnings of an upcomming war and he said "Always remember, the CIA was the agency that told US presidents for years the vietnam war would be over next week" ...
The irony here is that in this case they were right, and the Ukraine war is turning into a "Vietnam-like" defeat for Russia. Given another six months they might recapture all the territory lost since 2014.
It's strange to see what is in essence a handful of book reviews turned into an article with such a contentious title. Little of the article is actually about whether the CIA does more harm than good, and they don't even try to draw a conclusion on the matter.
Wow, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones' hot takes sound insane. Rice was a warmonger because her ancestors were slaves?
I wouldn't have a problem with the CIA if they were focused solely on protecting the safety of Americans and not also working for their financial interests via engaging in overseas sabotage operations (E.g. we all remember false reports about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and most people today believe it was all about oil).
Impossible to say without knowing about things that are probably still classified.
The failures become public, the successes would just kind of quietly dissolve into the background and maybe nobody would even know the CIA was involved. Success could also be something that didn’t happen that nobody even knew was something that might have happened.
That depends on a clearer definition of good.
For the US politically and power wise.
For the CIA itself politically and power wise.
For "human rights"
For "being the good guy in the end"
The vast majority of whatever the CIA does, is done in secret (duh)
and regular people won't know about it.
(Or at least not until decades later if its declassified)
We would have to know all the things they do to be able to evaluate
the sum total.
From what little I know I would say
"No they do more harm than good"
But that is based on my biased scale expecting that "do good" means
making the world a better place for people.
A probably better measure would be if it helps the state maintain power,
influence and intelligence services prudent to maintain the US as the
sole superpower.
What does that mean? Also wouldn't fewer nuts fall on your head the higher you go, because as you ascend the nuts go from being above you to being below you?
I bet Ted Kaczynski[1] would agree with this premise. Had he not fallen into the CIA project MK-Ultra, and the care of Henry A. Murray, his life and that of his victims likely wouldn't have been ruined.
The article makes no mention of the two most influential exposés by CIA insiders, Philip Agee's Inside the Company: CIA Diary (1975) and Frank Snepp's Decent Interval (1978). Either book would give a better illustration of conditions inside the CIA than any book the article mentions. Those two accounts made a deep impression on my cohorts and contributed to our feeling that the CIA was exceptionally incompetent among the various US intelligence operations.
A bit tangential to the actual article, but this is the first time I've seen preëminence and reëlected in writing. Is that a correct spelling?
Does that work for all vowels?
Yes and no. It's not strictly speaking correct but in French a diaeresis above a vowel means it's separate from the preceding one. Think about the car maker Citroën, "Sit-roh-en" rather than "Sit-rohn".
So if you squint a bit it describes the noise the word makes accurately but it's not how you'd write it in English.
Surely toppling foreign governments that aren't US-friendly or even just making them unstable means opportunity for American companies. For that matter, what they've done for arms sales could be enough to justify their existence. And then there's all the profit to be made cleaning things up and rebuilding.
No. The CIA has not done more harm to its masters than good.
Regardless of which way the ledger tallies, there's enough skeletons no longer in the closet to warrant a cleanup + rebranding for optics. Launder that reputation.
Impressive breakage of Betteridge’s law of headlines.
In the world stage it’s obvious to me that the US is the Least Evil Empire, so they have my backing. But damn what a close call it’s been huh? The list of ruthless dictators the CIA has helped gain power is so long I can’t even keep track. Anything the keep the commies out, and it simply wasn’t worth it.
If the US had taken their role as steward of the “Pax America” a bit more seriously, the global south would’ve today been as angry about Putin’s war as the West is. It makes perfect sense for a free speech free market democracy to be the leader of the free world but the US did a shit job at it.
> In the world stage it’s obvious to me that the US is the Least Evil Empire, so they have my backing.
I think this is probably true, but maybe not obvious, and especially not obious if you live in South or Central America, the middle east or some parts of Asia. It's probably very obvious if you live in parts of Africa or other parts of Asia though.
China does some horrific shit, but they never nuked anyone just for fun. And the list of countries they have organized genocides in, installed brutal dictators to, or simply carpet bombed into oblivion for no reason is a lot shorter.
[+] [-] silisili|3 years ago|reply
> And President Kennedy, as the enormity of the Bay of Pigs disaster came home to him, said to one of the highest officials of his Administration that he “wanted to splinter the C.I.A. in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|3 years ago|reply
They had the ability to do it and probably get away with it, and they had motive: self preservation.
[+] [-] dr_dshiv|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] refurb|3 years ago|reply
Look at the Bay of Pigs failure. The CIA is not some omnipotent power that topples stable countries via a few quite words while enjoying cigars and brandy.
The CIA doesn’t topple regimens itself, it backs locals who do.
Not that different than what the US is doing in Ukraine right now. Not “toppling” this time, rather “backing” and last I checked lots of Americans seem to approve of our meddling.
My take is you either shit or get off the pot. The US decides to either “meddle” in other countries or not.
If you decide to “meddle”, well, you also need to accept that things can go sideways and the locals and the US end up in a worse situation than if they avoided getting involved in the first place.
Unless you have a crystal ball, nobody can tell what the outcome of meddling will be.
[+] [-] LatteLazy|3 years ago|reply
Few other institutions could survive even 1 such farce. One has to wonder, if the CIA continues because no one has noticed such incompetence. Or if there is some more sinister reason...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency
[+] [-] rougka|3 years ago|reply
The fact of the matter is that the Cold War was won, and the CIA was a major part of it. You could analyze every coup that was started in Latin America as a mistake, but you can’t really say what was the alternative
[+] [-] tho2ui34234|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cm2187|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] js8|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SCUSKU|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ng55QPSK|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boomboomsubban|3 years ago|reply
Wow, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones' hot takes sound insane. Rice was a warmonger because her ancestors were slaves?
[+] [-] jongjong|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imgabe|3 years ago|reply
The failures become public, the successes would just kind of quietly dissolve into the background and maybe nobody would even know the CIA was involved. Success could also be something that didn’t happen that nobody even knew was something that might have happened.
[+] [-] ALittleLight|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seandoe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThinkBeat|3 years ago|reply
The vast majority of whatever the CIA does, is done in secret (duh) and regular people won't know about it. (Or at least not until decades later if its declassified)
We would have to know all the things they do to be able to evaluate the sum total.
From what little I know I would say
"No they do more harm than good"
But that is based on my biased scale expecting that "do good" means making the world a better place for people.
A probably better measure would be if it helps the state maintain power, influence and intelligence services prudent to maintain the US as the sole superpower.
From that perspective they may do better.
[+] [-] abudabi123|3 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Panetta
[+] [-] octopoc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikewarot|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/06/harvard...
[+] [-] wrp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laszlojamf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laszlojamf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gordonjcp|3 years ago|reply
So if you squint a bit it describes the noise the word makes accurately but it's not how you'd write it in English.
[+] [-] carabiner|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kome|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewcoo|3 years ago|reply
Who does the CIA serve?
Surely toppling foreign governments that aren't US-friendly or even just making them unstable means opportunity for American companies. For that matter, what they've done for arms sales could be enough to justify their existence. And then there's all the profit to be made cleaning things up and rebuilding.
No. The CIA has not done more harm to its masters than good.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dirtyid|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skrebbel|3 years ago|reply
In the world stage it’s obvious to me that the US is the Least Evil Empire, so they have my backing. But damn what a close call it’s been huh? The list of ruthless dictators the CIA has helped gain power is so long I can’t even keep track. Anything the keep the commies out, and it simply wasn’t worth it.
If the US had taken their role as steward of the “Pax America” a bit more seriously, the global south would’ve today been as angry about Putin’s war as the West is. It makes perfect sense for a free speech free market democracy to be the leader of the free world but the US did a shit job at it.
[+] [-] kybernetikos|3 years ago|reply
> -Attributed to Winston Churchill (but probably not authentic)
[+] [-] Schroedingersat|3 years ago|reply
I think this is probably true, but maybe not obvious, and especially not obious if you live in South or Central America, the middle east or some parts of Asia. It's probably very obvious if you live in parts of Africa or other parts of Asia though.
China does some horrific shit, but they never nuked anyone just for fun. And the list of countries they have organized genocides in, installed brutal dictators to, or simply carpet bombed into oblivion for no reason is a lot shorter.
[+] [-] jmpz|3 years ago|reply