Sometimes it seems like no matter which party is in charge, government is in the business of coming up with one bad idea after another. But this latest one seems particularly stupid. According to an article by the Washington Post, American military leaders are determined to create their own worldwide spy organization -- rivaling that of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Now it has always been my understanding that while the military and the CIA were both supposed to be concerned with defending this country, they were designed to do different jobs in that effort. The CIA was supposed to gather intelligence, while the military was supposed to wage wars. But the Pentagon wants to blur those lines now. They want their Defense Intelligence Agency to send hundreds more spies to other countries, with a goal of having over 1600 overseas operatives in the next few years.
These new spies will be trained by the CIA, but they will only answer to the military Defense Intelligence Agency. I think this is a terrible idea. Does this country really need two huge (and probably competing) intelligence agencies? Of course not. If the intelligence agency we already have is not doing a sufficient job, then it should be altered to do what is necessary -- but creating a competing network of spies is just a stupid idea (and will undoubtably come back to bite this country in the ass).
I guess we should have expected this though, since the CIA has been engaging in business more properly left to the military -- directing drone attacks on countries we are not even at war with (and which usually kill more innocent civilians than supposed "terrorists"). And just like we don't need two spy organizations, we also don't need two organizations waging war for this country (especially wars that haven't even been declared).
It's time to stop this nonsense -- and get both the military and the CIA back to performing the functions for which they were created.
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