Hacker News Reader

Comment by LatteLazy | Hacker News Reader

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...

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency

View on HN

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

> but American involvement there is the only reason why South Korea exists and we don’t have one giant North Korea.

True, but nobody knows how a unified communist Korea would have turned out. Without a direct threat at their border and an easy bad gut to point the finger at, they might have progressively opened up à la Vietnam (the closest comparison we have).

Could be, although Vietnam was fundamentally different than North Korea. Even if you compare Korea to Vietnam, it is highly unlikely the economic situation had been similar to South Korea.

Anyway this is all alternate history, just as the discussions in GP. How could we say something is a failure when we have no real way of understanding its effects

The counterfactual scenarios about this are interesting to think about. NK dictators base the state identity and national grit pretty much solely on that conflict. Most asian communist countries without the frozen conflict and perpatual state of war opened up on their own.

(And of course the division of Korea was a US idea to begin with...)

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.

If you think Pakistan is proper US ally then you have some sizeable reality distortion field. In similar vein as ie Saudi Arabia

Take this with a massive grain of salt given I can’t provide a citation but a close family member and a close friend both served in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan and said Pakistan was the single largest source of funds and weapons for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and absolutely with the implicit, if not explicit, support of Pakistani officials.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/16/pakistans-f...

"One of the most dangerous in the world".

But yes, it's also true that the US has backed Pakistan, sold them F-16s etc. This is the problem: the US can back countries that it itself regards as dangerous!

Pakistan was definitely a problem in the War on Afghanistan. The northwestern area of Pakistan, the "federally administered tribal areas", are basically lawless and Taliban could operate from there and strike over the border. There were also attacks on US convoys.

Invading Afghanistan without having either a coastline or a neighbouring solid ally was a big part of the disaster. Every air conditioner running on a US base was powered by diesel that had to be trucked two thousand miles across semi-hostile territory.

Pakistan is a mess.

On one hand, as you say, they're an "ally" with US bases etc. On the other they actively assisted the Taliban. They've been useful in some situations, but have undermined the US in others. It's not clear whether they'd side with the US or China. And they leak nuclear secrets like a sieve. Plus they're basically turning into an Islamic theocracy so the long term does not bode well for the US.

The problem with intelligence agencies is that you only learn about their failures. If they succeed you never know they knew or were behind an event.

but what a list of failures it is... caused millions of deaths directly and indirectly, destabilized whole parts of the world for centuries, and NO obvious success to boast about and justify all that mayhem and making sworn enemies for life instead of very good friends who share all major values with US (ie whole Iran affair is CIA and MI6 clusterfuck par excellence).

I don't credit CIA with any major influence on Soviet Union collapse for example, although I grok very well why they would like to promote that emotion and feel the same. It was just a forceful amalgam of nations, not unlike Yugoslavia but much worse, without any real merging happening over decades, and once distinct parts realized the grip is not anymore so strong they went their own ways (given what people like Stalin did to many ethnicities in USSR they are hardly to blame... I mean who wants to be willingly with Russians in one state)

But they were never alone. Every other ex-empire or wannabe-empire has played the same game. Just look at irans agents popping up wherever there is war in the middle east, so just because its the biggest figure on the board, does not mean its the only one to be called out.

And regarding south american democracies.. well, they almost all inherited a racist, pyramid scheme of society from there colonial times. Which almost always even when democracy prevailed failed to reform, just exchange figure heads and the gravy train runs ever onward, with a different conductor. A different group of families takes over and rules the distrought masses.

True democracies are in the hearts and minds of the people and are really tough to extuinguish, which putin just currently finds out the hard way. Its more then voting, the state becomes the property of every citizen, in there mind and stays that way even when temporary toppled.

Ever wondered, why some countries are such a rodeo ride for dictators and others aint? Its this. The "we ought to be in control of our destiny, we were once and we will be again, cause the big men will die one day". Everything before that is democracy waiting to become real, some of them were the democracy was glued on from above even reverted with "broad public support" back to dictatorships (Turkey).

> given what people like Stalin did to many ethnicities in USSR they are hardly to blame... I mean who wants to be willingly with Russians in one state

Stalin was a Georgian. His next successors were Ukrainians.

I don't quite remember the latest ones, but it doesn't seem too far from the truth to say that the only Russians (as in ethnic, not "Russian" == "Soviet") among the highest leadership of the SU were just Lenin, Gorbachev and maybe someone else super obscure.

So yeah, "Russians".

Boss: "I'm sorry, but, you're fired. You're incompetent, you're constantly making mistakes, you've caused immense collateral damage, you've shown no signs of improving, and, frankly, you come off as downright evil."

Employee: "Have you considered that I'm actually quite competent in all the areas you can't observe?"

I don't think this is true. If the CIA intervention in X had been a huge success, we would have heard all about it. If the CIA were involved in (say) removing dictator X and that somehow led to democracy and peace how and why would they keep that secret when they don't and can't keep secret when the opposite occurs.

Also, just looking at CIA actions we know about (removing democratic leaders for autocrats) it seems very unlikely the CIA has a super secret program doing the exact opposite. Do the two departments take turns or flip a coin to decide whether to give a job to the successful or counterproductive department?!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com