Comments by "Major Moolah" (@majormoolah5056) on "Is it time for the US government to rethink how it keeps its secrets? | GZERO World" video.

  1. Many of the whistleblowers of the recent years have all been concerned about the paramilitary role the CIA in particular has taken. During the War on Terror, CIA took on the role of killing people. They hired from the military but were outside the military. That is so dangerous on so many levels. CIA does not answer to the Congress in any meaningful way. Even their budget is classified! If the US President decides to use CIA to kill someone then no one will know and no one is responsible. This is, surprisingly, bad for the agency itself. Traditionally CIA has been used in a human intelligence role, generating information for policy makers. But when their mandate was changed to include torture and murder, their culture and capabilities deteriorated. Violence dehumanizes both the victim and perpetrator, in different ways. During the War on Terror, CIA became reliant on technical sources also mentioned in the video. But US has other agencies that do that sort of thing. CIA was focused on electronic surveillance and killing people, to the point that they often had no sources inside the organisations they were supposed to fight! If you are completely reliant on eavesdropping conversations, it is very hard to understand the context and nuance. I'm also thinking back to Nord Stream. If the US President decides that blowing up infrastructure in Europe should be done, then he can easily do it. If his reasoning is that cutting off Russian gas for good mean that US becomes the primary gas source for Europe, increasing their dependency and making US energy sector some money, without no one ever knowing, well then -- what is the harm? Giving even a democratically elected leader too much power can be very corruptive.
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