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- cross-posted to:
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Helping Ukraine is “a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns,” the CIA director wrote.
Western allies must continue providing assistance to Ukraine in its war with Russia this year, or risk a mistake “of historic proportions,” CIA Director William Burns wrote in a column published Tuesday.
Burns laid out his case in a Foreign Affairs column, noting that less than 5 percent of the U.S. defense budget — “a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns” — is all that Washington sends to Kyiv.
If an opportunity for serious negotiations to end the war emerges, he wrote, providing arms to Ukraine will put it in a stronger bargaining position. Ukraine’s military would also be able to continue fending off Russian troops while rebuilding its infrastructure, while Moscow spends massive amounts of money to keep the war going, Burns added.
“For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions,” Burns wrote, referencing a soccer term for scoring a goal for the rival team by putting the ball into a player’s own net.
I don’t disagree, but also the existence of the CIA is a mistake of historic proportions so I don’t really care what this guy has to say.
While CIA has done horrible shit, having a foreign intelligence agency seems like a reasonable thing to have.
I mean tell that to the countless people murdered or living in countries that had their democratically elected government overthrown for no good reason in favor of violent rightwing nut jobs because the CIA wanted to do it.
I think it would be better if we just didn’t have an intelligence agency in the US given the absolutely incomprehensibly careless way the CIA and other clandestine US agencies have caused massed suffering around the world.
Those countries have their own intelligence services. I’m betting every country has one, in one form or another. USA not having one during Cold War would’ve been insanity, it would’ve just ceded ground to KGB
What was insanity was the stupidity of the fear of a red communist wave taking over the planet like some kind of cartoon, what was insanity was the Vietnam war that even when it became unpopular the US government basically just refused and colluded to keep us there.
Sure would’ve made USSR’s job easier to not have any kind of intelligence service. I can’t take it as a serious suggestion for a country larger than Monaco not to have one. Even if for nothing else than self-protection
I don’t think you understand how just because you can’t comprehend a state without a rightwing security apparatus that engages in disastrous manipulation of the sovereignty of other nations with literally zero oversight from voters doesn’t magically justify the incredible amount of suffering and hardship caused by giving those rightwing, ignorant nutjobs the power to wreck and overthrow democratically elected (or not) governments of countries because they felt it was a slippery slope for them to be talking about socializing healthcare or whatever…
I don’t care that you can’t visualize it, that doesn’t justify the awful impact the CIA has had on the world.
Intelligence service isn’t inherently a right-wing security apparatus. Hell, the other example here was KGB.