Beyond you liking to think that, what evidence do you have that the CIA's policy is controlled by anyone other than the CIA's Deputy Director who commands internal operations, and its Director, who reports to the director of National Intelligence as well as having to answer to Congress and the White House?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency#Or...
For the most part, theories of secret groups that control things are false, not counting well-known groups like the Masons, etc. that make secrecy part of their identity. There is plenty of evidence to support that Congress and the White House are lobbied heavily by outside interest, and that's no secret. Combine that with the varied interests and agendas in the involved organizations, human error, incorrect or misinterpreted information, etc. and you have plenty enough reason for things like this to go wrong.
If you are an American citizen, and you believe the U.S. government is so wrong and misguided, nothing is typically stopping you from leaving the country or attempting to vote for others that might be able to make some changes, but the fact is that there is an extreme momentum of the country that is simultaneous chaotic and well-intentioned, so no matter who you vote for, things will typically continue on. Well- maybe not if Trump is elected, because the entire country could turn into a sideshow ;) , but this is true for the most part.
If you live in another democratic country, vote for leaders that you believe will positively influence the U.S. in one way or another, or you can speak up about it.
Belief in some shadowy group is just not helpful, and is a result of the imprint on the psyche from movies, television, and other media sources. There are real groups out there with influence, and real single players with influence, but it's really not that hidden; it's just complex.
More likely, there's a little golf club agreement now and then between some corporation or lobbying group and government agencies. For example, if you guys can help us with a little information and maybe a teensy overthrow, we'll give you some better terms on that spy sat you wanted.
https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+committee+anti+scie...
Why would you expect any other oversight committee in any other field be competent?
The mob is ignorant so pick someone smart to be in charge? How do you pick? Who decides? Maybe the smartest people are the ones who take power already. Really the money is in charge.
The conspiratorial view of history is the correct one.
Would you like me to go into more detail?
Sure.
The reason it's funny to me is because the only time I ever hear bout "secret evidence" is when I read about secret courts and prisons that the US government runs, such as the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (LOL! It's so funny that people around the world can be prosecuted, killed and tortured because of secret evidence, isn't it?)
Honestly. What do you need to just to consider the small possibility that your view of things is the incorrect one?
Do you want macro/micro/historical/current evidence and do you expect such evidence to be easily disseminated here or are you just asking without any of these things in mind?
I guess we could start with the fact that it's proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that very few people control the economy in modern times - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed...
We could also prove that for historical times.
The evidence is there. It just takes a little work to dig through and a lot of reading. So, I suggest trying to look around on your own first. Read about the United Fruit Company. 1950's Iran. Rand Corporation. There's just so much out there already that I think anybody who hasn't read about this stuff by now must not really care.
Take the United Fruit Company - so they lobbied the US government to instigate a coup in Guatemala. That's devious. (I've just looked up the coup in more detail, and the consequences for Guatemala were horrendous, so I'd say the coup instigators were not merely devious, but outright evil).
Thing is, neither party benefited. The US got involved to prevent communism growing in its backyard, but ended up pissing off the entire region. The UFC wanted to protect its assets in Guatemala, but was forced by Eisenhower to divest them all 4 years later.
What's the grand pattern here? What's the motive behind all these conspiracy theories? Do they intentionally backfire, or are the people pulling the strings just short-sighted?
I agree that it's a fact that there are different groups competing for power and that there is a constant struggle. I would quibble over the "without a guiding plan" part because I don't know what you mean by that exactly. Large and powerful groups can certainly exert leverage over numerous smaller and less powerful groups.
A guiding plan could be a general philosophy. Look at all of our political and military power systems. They are designed hierarchically, so that the nearer you get to the top, the smaller and more powerful the group is. The pyramid on the dollar bill is obviously symbolic of this. That's indicative of some sort of guiding plan. I mean, there's one group (the Masons) who can get all of their secret symbols implanted into our money forever? That's scary to me.
Regarding United Fruit - yes, the company suffered but can you say that company profit was the prime motive for messing with South America? Have you considered that all warfare starts with economic warfare? What if de-stabilizing a region makes you all sorts of profits in other ways, with other companies? What if you can get all sorts of secret money to do secret things by controlling illicit trade that now comes out of that region?
I have a LOT of questions. How could the Taliban have virtually ended poppy production in Afghanistan in 2001 and yet our own government which supposedly is at "war" with drugs like Heroin, cannot quell the supply from that area which produces 90% of the drug for the rest of the world?
In my view of the world - the puppets change all the time but somehow shit stays the same, so I just am not that sure that there isn't a guiding plan of sorts. (EDIT: Even if that plan is just "greed". Endless greed. And "do what you want" mentality, which is the philosophy of Satan/Lucifer. You might think I'm crazy just for mentioning Satanism but secret power didn't start in modern times.)
"As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through General Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today."
http://www.cfr.org/world/remarks-national-security-adviser-j...
For example, George W. Bush initially got elected on a platform of non-intervention. There was, however, a strong core of Neocons in his administration, like Paul Wolfowitz. After 2001 the President switched directions completely and they became considerably more powerful and their lobbying probably directly led to the Iraq war.
But none of this is really hidden secrets.
I'd like some evidence of that statement.
If you have any evidence that the US is actually a democracy, that would be nice too.
Link to op-ed: http://tinyurl.com/hstheus
Congressional oversight of the CIA didn't begin until the Hughes-Ryan act of 1974. This act slowed down the cloak and dagger activities of the organization but never eliminated them.
I recently read Legacy of Ashes[0], which I thought would be a sort of thrilling history of the spy game in America, but turned out to be a chronicle of blunder after blunder by the CIA. Fascinating stuff.
Having read that, I'm not naive enough to believe the cause of "most" global instability is due to the CIA; that's giving them far too much credit.
[0]http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/030...
Do you see the pattern?
In the interest of balance, the situation on 9/11 wasn't completely the fault of the US. Saudi Arabia appears to have been the main driving force behind the attacks. There are a number of reasons the US avoided attacking Saudi Arabia and went into Afghanistan instead, including past political deals and Saudi Arabia being the home of Mecca, the holiest site for Muslims (if you're looking for the quickest way to radicalise Muslims, damaging Mecca would probably be it).
I believe the main way for resolving the mess in the Middle East is to reduce our reliance on oil and move to locally controlled sources of energy like renewables. It's the oil money that's fuelling the conflict on both sides, if we cut that out of the equation I'm confident we would find it much easier to work towards peace in the Middle East.
I agree, though even if the US solved its energy problems today, we (i.e. the entire Western world) need to survive the generation or two of pretty angry Middle-Easterns seeking revenge for their destroyed homes and killed families, as well as our own politicians using that to further their agendas.
Observe: We kinda did, as far as geopolitics are concerned anyway (environmentalist concerns may obviously differ). US net imports of oil are approaching zero, and our neighbor Canada has plenty more.
Here the Financial Times reports on projections that the US will be a net exporter by 2028, and maybe 2019 if the price shoots up: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f6dcbd90-e2bf-11e4-aa1d-00144feab7...
http://www.zdnet.com/article/us-will-not-surpass-saudi-arabi...
15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were saudis. The London 7/7 bombers were raised in Britain. Most of the Paris/Belgium attackers were born in Europe.
This seems like a fairly biased statement. In all cases that spring to mind - Gaza, the Golan Heights, and the West Bank - Israeli seized and occupied territory during wars in which they were the defenders.
Just in case that the Six Day War was one of them, it's worth pointing out that there's evidence that Isreal started this war:
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/07/04/israels-attac...
So if it wasn't the headquarters for the WTO, what activity was taking place at the WTC?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Centers_Associatio...
Makes a lot of sense to me. NYC is an obvious top target. WTC is a big building, so high body count. Well known around the world; will have more impact than hitting some building nobody has ever heard of. Very distinctive appearance and a lot taller than the buildings around it, so good chance of actually being able to find it. Having two tall towers next to each other increases the chance of collision. Being so tall compared to the buildings around them, good chance of a lot of people seeing it happen (and recording the second one hit, so good publicity). In terms of practicality and terrorising, it ticks all the boxes.
Perhaps the CIA is thus wildly successful? That may be their primary mission.
See:
China Military Spending by year https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedi...
Photos reveal growth of Chinese military bases in South China Sea http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/13/politics/china-military-south-...
There are several factors at play, including European colonialism of the early 20th century, as well as the tendency to split countries in a divided fashion (e.g. India & Pakistan) as countries divested of those interests.
Such an AI system can break free from our control (it will end up manipulating us in the physical space), it should become wiser than humanity as a collective (because it will evolve much faster then us). And in this case, we'd end up having such "an intelligence group that only did good".
The problem lies in how we manage to bridge the period between now and "then", because it will be a highly volatile situation, with a very high probability for our extinction.
And that would lead to the conclusion that AI will only dominate us during certain periods of time, will mainly remain of commercial nature, used as a tool to create/monopolize power further.
I too do dream of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Of course you can. The problem I assume you're encountering is that you're not starting from irreducible basic premises. Thus, you can't logically resolve the already-existing and conflicting inconsistencies.
We are bombarded from birth with very illogical and inconsistent rules about how the world works. All of those things implicitly include "ethical" value systems. They're very hard to reconcile logically after the fact, simply because they're contradictory in nature and we have at that point heavily-invested into building mental models to navigate the world.
And what about other nations' national interests? Doing your own interest is not renowned as a particularly ethical activity per se, you know. Before assuming that the evil done by an intelligence agency has to do with its failure to work in its nation's interest, you should ask yourself whether your own interests are legitimate and above other people's interests.
But just like with all the other agencies in the US, I don't believe they'll be gone fast. They know to much ;)
0 - https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedi...
1 - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...