Help me understand the CIA's role in US foreign policy toward Israel
Help me understand the CIA's role in US foreign policy toward Israel
I've read several news stories talking about the CIA's attempts at negotiations with the Israeli government, parallel with the US State Department's incredibly brazen charades, lies, coverups, and stonewalling. I've heard a couple times that the CIA has been actually attempting to move things back toward the status quo.
Now I see they've trotted out Obama's CIA director to go on CBS Sunday Morning to talk about Israel's terror attacks on Lebanon and directly call it terrorism. That's got to be coordinated with the current agency, and comes across as very intentional signaling. Matthew Miller is basically acting like nothing happened, while the CIA is publicly calling Israel a terrorist state.
My question is why? What are their incentives here? Are these stories just PR bullshit by the CIA? What does the CIA stand to lose in an all-out regional war, that makes them willing to go around the President and apparently make the only real efforts to negotiate?
I've got nothing but vibes to back this up, but I suspect Israel going full terrorism, at a time when much of the US's attempts at isolating Russia and China are backfiring into a stronger BRICS, have raised concerns among folks who aren't just blithely following the wants of the military industrial complex. Whether it's Covid, Climate Change, or China, much of the US government seems to have drank their own Kool-Aid and it would not surprise me if some of the Kool-Aid makers are horrified that things are becoming unhinged at a much more rapid pace than they have the resources to adapt to.
I have a very similar "drank the kool-aid" vibes based theory, too. The current crop in charge charge had over 3 decades of post-Soviet collapse to be mediocre and actually take to heart the exceptionalism narrative and a sort of complacency that follows.
My read is this: American exceptional used to mean "if America tries it does the best" and now it means to them "America is the best and therefore doesn't have to try." A failure to adapt, as you pointed out. Without something to constantly check itself against the systems and those that control them have become calcified and lost the dynamism that they relied on to stay competitive.
This rot has set in across the board, from domestic and foreign policy, corporate practice, tech development, everything. In this case specifically, intelligence and espionage that hovers in the gray area between hard and soft power.
There is a micro development parallel that can be pointed to within the 2 dominant political parties but most clearly within the Republican party. Where previously they used AM radio types and pretended to pay homage to evangelical talking points the party is now rife with the people who came up drinking that ideological slop. They don't know or don't care that this was all a big game being played to dupe the rubes. One of the fatal flaws of cynically using something like religion as a means to power is that once the cynics die off you're stuck with True Believers replacing them.
The US wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want a right-wing, outwardly hostile state in the region to destabilize it's neighbors, but they do not want it so hostile that the regional and global community decide it needs to be put down.
I think the CIA is probably speaking the true intentions of the US. They're probably afraid they are going to lose control of Israel and the situation in general, and thus possibly lose their greatest asset in the region, or at the very least cause further damage to the US's public image by proxy.
Just my thoughts, I'm not an expert or anything.
Have we not already “lost control” as you say.
I mean I think the US has lost control. The tail is definitely wagging the dog in Israel. If the US were to cut off supplies and guns to Israel or put stipulations on it's use of said guns and supplies it would not just say "oh okay thank you for the support so far" it would go nuclear, figuratively and possibly literally.
They know America is going to get some serious blowback following Bibi off a cliff. The pager reveal has inevitably left questions of how deep and wide spread is it really?
I remember when Vault 7 and Snowden leaks came out they said something along the lines of man in the middle planting physical chips in electronics that the manufacturer didn't know about. Between the factory and shipping. Back doors and such. If Pissreal is willing to do shit that exposes things and alters markets such as fuck anything from Taiwan, or create panic in major market sectors where the CIA / NSA / FBI
loses a good portion of their own intel network in the processes that might make them hit the "hold on there good buddy let's not get carried away". Who knows what else Bibi would expose that's out there in his arrogance and hubris?People around the world are now asking what else is there? How far does / could it go? Phones are now made with sealed cases where you can not conviently pop out the battery and see the innards of the device. Right to repair is made harder on many more things all the time. Makes it much more easy for an attack like this just waiting. Israel didn't just terrorize Lebanon.
Yeah that tracks, the former CIA director actually emphasized the supply chain infiltration aspects. They're really worried about the world switching to China
let me help you: mossad is a branch of the CIA. Does that help?
I think we are seeing that relationship splinter.
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We already know there are “realist” factions within the CIA and the Deep State who think the empire has over-stretched itself, so this is not at all surprising.
That makes a lot of sense. Supplying Ukraine is a strain on US war production, but doable. Ignite one or two more wars, and we actually have to start letting "allies" fall
James Angleton is historically the most important individual we know of, he managed the Israeli account as head of Counterintelligence at CIA during and after the Kennedy years. His testimony to the Church Committee reads as an admission of Israel's role and interest in seeing JFK dead. While far from perfect, for Kennedy nuclear proliferation was an obstacle to peace, and an existential threat obviously. Angleton has no less than 2, possibly 3 statues in Israel. None in the US. One overlooks Jerusalem from foothills outside the city.
Basically Zionist got the bomb and they got all the blackmail and plenty of operations outsourced to Mossad, Epstein is very plausibly Mossad, etc.
There are networks and associations between people which supercede a lot of this though, it's unclear how much going on today is "CIA" versus the organized criminals, "terrorists", foreign intelligence services, and business interests they've flooded with cash, guns, and technology for decades. There's possibly just enough parties with resources now that we can't really make much sense of specifics in real time
The Pentagon wants to go for China, the State Department wants to go for everyone and the CIA wants to keep all the balls in the air so they can do more colour revolutions everywhere