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Comment by skh | Hacker News Reader

...I'd have hoped that people such as Stroud that worked for US intelligence would have a stronger moral compass than what the article describes.

It seems like you are saying it is moral to work for a U.S. intelligence agency but not for a foreign government that targets human rights activists. U.S. intelligence agencies have targeted human rights activists for decades. U.S. intelligence agencies have engaged in torture, illegal kidnappings, drug trafficking, and a host of other immoral acts. If a person is comfortable working for an American intelligence agency and you are comfortable with people who do then I don't see how this situation is any worse. I'm surprised she had any moral compunction that an American citizen was involved.

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The nature of the government matters.

The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law. This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies in the past. Supporting the ideals of the west (representative democracy, independent court system, individual (minority/women's) rights, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, etc.) require organizations like this to exist. This doesn't mean they shouldn't be held to a high standard (they should), but that good people should work with them and that it's critical good people do so the standard is high.

The UAE is a religious dictatorship with pretty much none of these things, supporting their intelligence agencies (particularly when they're targeting political activists that they deem a threat) is worse and not morally equivalent. This is likely why they painted it as entirely for defense against terrorism to most of the contractors.

I find it pretty disturbing that this person, knowing about the offensive targeting (particularly of political activists), only finds this morally concerning when it involves the surveillance of Americans.

The nature of the government matters.

The style of government matters not to me when it comes to moral culpability. Catholic priests murdered in Central America with the approval of the U.S. government did not care that we have a representative government. Since it doesn't matter to the victims of our torture, murdering, raping, and pillaging it doesn't seem germane to me. Indeed, that we are a representative democracy only causes me to be depressed further as the blame partly resides with me and my fellow countrymen since we elected the leaders of these monsters. In the UAE at least the average citizen has less culpability since they have no say in their government.

Those things are still terrible and wrong (we're in agreement about that).

The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing.

It may be morally pure to just avoid the complex issues, but other than feeling good and maybe virtue signaling it doesn't actually help. Given the true need for security and organizations like this I think it's important for good people to be involved in this work. We have agency and a responsibility to make things better.

I think this argument changes when the foundational core is different (religious dictatorship) because the high level goals are not the same - you're immediately operating under a bad moral starting point when the law itself is bad and the government is not a representative democracy.

Your original point was:

> "If a person is comfortable working for an American intelligence agency and you are comfortable with people who do then I don't see how this situation is any worse."

I'm arguing it's both a lot worse and that there are good reasons for a moral person to work with western intelligence agencies.

> The difference in our argument is that I think it's important for good people to be involved in their government in order to support these western ideals and work to do the right thing.

In principle maybe, but not under the what's being played out in the US. Given you have these principles I should put more faith in you and hope that you don't murder me when it's convenient? An intelligence agency is not the government and vice-versa. It only reflects the people's mandate in just its core function, intelligence among other things.

From my perspective too many Americans believe the mantra, “We are good and they are bad.”. We had a President that said those who are not with us are against us. We leaders say that we are exceptional, we are a moral government and that believes in freedom and human rights. But the actions of our government suggest that we are not moral and are not in a position to denounce other nations without being profoundly hypocritical. Too many Americans believe we are altruistic and don’t know about or care about our past and present evil deeds.

The high level goals of the U.S. are to maintain hegemonic dominance and our government appears to be willing to engage in all sorts of immoral deeds to accomplish this goal. It’s not virtue signaling to point out the American government is untrustworthy, engages in illegal behavior, tortures, murders, rapes, and pillages and that I personally don’t see how working for American intelligence agencies is not significantly more moral than working for UAE agencies. It’s how I see things.

I'd argue the actions suggest complexity with both a lot of good and bad which the history of any large group of people is going to have - it isn't binary. The government is also not one entity acting in unison, it's a lot of people with different goals trying to do different things.

That said, the core goals and ideas that countries stand for are vastly different between western representative democracies like the US, UK and religious theocracies like the UAE, KSA (or kleptocratic governments like Russia). I think this is an important difference.

The pragmatic approach is given the need for intelligence organizations to exist it's important for good people to work there and try to do the right thing.

Opting out and implying that any moral person would have to act similarly leads to a government of the worst people and it kind of abandons the principle goals of representative democracy. It's not the pointing out of bad behavior that's virtue signaling, it's the side stepping of the difficulty of the issue - how do you actually solve these kinds of complex problems?

The goals you mention between the governments you spoke are indeed different. This is not an unimportant point. I believe you are correct in that. I don’t claim that there are no moral people working for American intelligence agencies. I don’t claim there are only immoral people working for UAE intelligence. What I do claim is that I don’t look down on people doing dirty shit for UAE while not looking down on similar bad actors for American intelligence. What I do claim is that over the last 50 years or so the distinction between UAE and the U.S. in terms of governmental morality has blurred and I no longer see the U.S. government as a one deserving of support or the benefit of the doubt.

I think we actually agree on most things then.

I think bad actors in both places should be viewed negatively and be accountable for bad things they do. I do think risk is higher in a place with fewer rules (or bad laws), but that's more of a separate thing.

I'm generally suspicious of giving any powerful group the benefit of the doubt - it's good to be skeptical.

Our main difference is that I think the US government is still worth supporting (even if the current administration is absolutely not). I also see a significant difference between the US and the UAE.

Anyway - I appreciate the nuanced discussion, thanks.

"the distinction between UAE and the U.S. in terms of governmental morality has blurred"

But imagine UAE or KSA by the will of Allah get the military and economic power of the US?

What would they be doing?

Bombing and sanctioning countries until they convert to their particular brand of Islam and accept sharia law?

I'd bet the distinction will get unblurred pretty quickly.

We do just that but for a set of beliefs that are not religious.

But how comes that Western democracies with all their core goals and ideas and the moral high ground are the best friends with KSA and selling it weapons worth tens of billions of dollars? Enabling the war in the Yemen among other things.

What are these goals and ideas worth?

If America was an Aztec democracy.. And the law required bloody sacrifices, would that make it okay to ex port because form and function are in the expected shape?

"The US is a representative democracy that has rule of law"

The above statement holds, whoever it never stopped the support (material, logistical, etc) of murdereos regimes all over the world. Look, I'm not an idealist, I understand that the US is a power hegemon and as such it will always impose its will on smaller countries, same as the UK or France did in the past. What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys", when evidence against that is so overwhelming. At least the UK was clear in its intentions "we are building/defending the British Empire"

> What irritates me is that its citizens are convinced that they are "the good guys"

It will be interesting to see how well this ages. Looking at past iterations of global power(s), this era seems like one of the best. Sure, the US has done some evil, but it at least pretends to follow the law most of the time. It may have started some wars and interfered where it shouldn't, but nowhere to the degree of past global powers.

At the end of the day, the US never interferes with religious freedom, accepts homosexuality, and tends to treat men and women as equal. That has literally never happened before in the history of world powers.

I'm pretty sure the Persian empire did all those things.

Treat men and women as equals?

"In general, we can say that Persian women enjoyed power, influence, and economic opportunities. They were involved in the military and owned businesses, and held the same jobs as men. Some women never married or had children, but this wasn't seen as a problem. However, Ancient Persian society was still patriarchal, and for the most part, men held higher positions than women.

One of the reasons that Ancient Persians held women in high regard might have been their religion. Zoroastrianism was the dominant religion, and its ideology stressed that men and women were equals. Naturally, this would shape the worldview of Ancient Persians, and we can say that overall women were seen as important figures in society."

https://study.com/academy/lesson/women-in-ancient-persia-roy...

Funny fun fact about Zoroastrianism: "British musician Freddie Mercury, lead singer for the rock band Queen, was of Parsi descent. Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara, practiced Zoroastrianism."

The description in the first paragraph perfectly fits a lot of Western countries today.

Yes, what you see today in Iran has nothing to do with thousands of years of Persian empire. Persians are quite far from arabs in many aspects. I blame US and Britain, but mainly US for today's situation - their constant meddling, installing corrupt leaders and eventually pissing off radicals enough to revolt and take power.

You know why US embassy was stormed like it was? Because CIA was actively using it as a base of their operations. How you would like if your own resource-rich country was constantly interfered with bunch of spies who hide in their embassy but feel so comfortable that they don't even hide it too well?

They should have kicked staff out of country (even though most didn't have diplomatic immunity and were helping subvert the state they were in - this is still heavily punishable everywhere around the world today). Instead jailing them gave US marketing fodder to paint them as pure evil. Not that they are saints, but Saudi Arabia just next door ain't much better but was, is and will be a big US friend, as seen with treatment of horrible Khashoggi case.

Countries don't have friends. They have interests...

I didn't imply it as a reference to today's Iran, but specifically to e.g. Parthian Persia.

People in US know so little about other countries history... Women were treated equal to men long time ago in the USSR, for example (about 100 years ago).

Comparing mercantile colonial Britain with USA of today is like comparing slavery to low-income job, they may look and feel the same from outside but there is a world of difference.

Ironic comparison given that the British Empire banned slavery before the American Civil War.

“Past empires were even worse” is not much consolation if the US uses its economic might to drive your country to ruin and your countrymen to unemployment and starvation, trains and arms paramilitary soldiers to come rape and massacre your neighbors, bombs your village to rubble, props up the autocratic military dictatorship ruling your country, etc.

There are dozens of countries and millions of lives around the world which US military/foreign policy has left in ruins.

Which is not to say that the US is any worse than other global powers, or that a world where the US was completely isolationist would necessarily be better. But its hardly the force for divine progress and prosperity that we Americans often pretend it is to ourselves.

> They may look and feel the same from outside

This isn't as comforting as you seem to think it is, when you're talking to people on the outside.

the good old "i only shot you once when all those people would have shot you 3 times" defense.

>This is not denying the bad behavior of intelligence agencies in the past.

But to say it is okay for someone to work for those agencies is to deny their bad behavior in the past. There has been no change to those agencies except they are better at covering up their current day bad behavior, so to say it is at all moral to support them is only possible if you find that their past behaviors weren't really bad.

Solid points you make.

Though also, it might just my be inner cynicism reading this article having spent a long time working on security/human rights etc, but it sort of feel reading between the lines that the so-called "moral compunction" of many of the former US intel people was actually more of a "legal compunction" ("Oh crap, I've ignored things I've seen because I am getting paid a huge wedge of tax free money but now the the FBI are sniffing around it's time to grow a conscience and get ahead of this.")

That is an interesting take. I'd not have thought of "legal compunction". I like the phrase and will borrow it without attribution!

I just want to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you.

Exactly. Psychopaths have no morals, they only feign them when necessary.

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