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> there was a fear of "alert fatigue" coupled with a lack of confidence about the strength of the signals they were getting. This and the parent comment might

> there was a fear of "alert fatigue" coupled with a lack of confidence about the strength of the signals they were getting. This and the parent comment might be correct, but also, the US has one of the largest intelligence agencies in the world and the US defence budget dwarfs everyone else’s. They failed spectacularly in the role they exist to perform. This deserves criticism.

cineticdaffodil 5d ago
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vkou 5d ago
The role they exist to perform is maintaining the American empire and hegemony, and they've done a pretty good job of that up until ~this year. 'Keeping Americans safe' is not on their agenda. If it were, they wouldn't be sticking America's hand into Middle Eastern quagmires, like the one that radicalized OBL and provided a training ground for his friends and allies. If it were, they wouldn't be working half as hard in demonstrating to hundreds of millions of people that yes, America does, in fact, mean them harm, and is happy to inflict that harm on them.
- installiskeycon 5d ago
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- ElProlactin 5d ago
  > ...and they've done a pretty good job of that up until ~this year. Not really. When you look back, seeing how things turned out, history looks different than it almost certainly felt to most people at the time. It took 250-300 years for the Roman Empire to collapse. You could make a pretty strong argument that the US has been in decline for decades, and that cracks in Pax Americana were already forming during the Vietnam War era.
- gumby 5d ago
  > 'Keeping Americans safe' is not on their agenda. If it were, they wouldn't be sticking America's hand into Middle Eastern quagmires... Even though I agree with you that the US shouldn’t have been executing the foreign policy it did, especially in Western Asia, I’m going to push back on your statement. Since the 1920s, oil has been the #1 input to any industrialized economy, and since the 1960s, any economy. And since crude oil is the #1 commodity product (despite coming in different grades), it’s in not just the US’s interest but almost everybody’s interest to have a stable supply since a disruption anywhere causes pricing turmoil everywhere (as seen in the current situation). Without that, you disrupt food, healthcare, and production of almost any goods. So yes, it’s a form of self-interested safety. Naturally even when you consider this as the policy driver, plenty of people will misunderstand, sometimes willfully, and use the machine for other purposes. More importantly, though energy will remain the pre-eminent input to all economies,it no longer need be petrochemical. The US seems to be ignoring this, to its long (and short) term detriment.
  - pfannkuchen 5d ago
    So if USA hadn’t interfered in the middle east or supported Israel, ever, the oil supply coming from the Middle East would be significantly less stable? How…?
  - vkou 4d ago
    If energy security were that high a priority, the US would have been rushing head-first, instead of dragging its feet, in a transition off fossil fuels and onto renewables and energy independence. It's quite clearly not.
  - peebee67 4d ago
    That's a really solid set of counterpoints to which I'd respond that the foreign policy has not merely been to maintain supply of oil, but to do so at discount prices and prevent other powers from developing it. This has demonstrably not improved stable access to oil and necessarily requires bringing an increasing fraction of the world to ruin and relative turmoil. In short, it's bad long-term strategy because it's not sustainable. Meanwhile, they've notably resisted efforts to diversify access to alternative sources of energy that'd reduce that reliance on oil.
- CMay 4d ago
  You have huge gaps in your understanding of history.
epolanski 4d ago
And Israel too, yet October 7th happened. This all goes to show that either the budgets are overblown or inefficiently used, in any case who's in charge is responsible.
- neom 4d ago
  Very good mini doc on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5gKaqOrCpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5gKaqOrCpk
  - epolanski 4d ago
    PBS Frontline isn't a bad source of information, but too prone to making stories and narratives fit the 60 minutes mark even at the cost of heavy cherry picking and producing misrepresentations.
    - neom 4d ago
      True, but I think a lot of the reporting was done by WaPo who traditionally are not the worst offenders. Genuine question, do you think this particular video is sensationalism and cherry picking? It read as seeming credible to me, but I do worry I'm becoming more gullible/less critical thinking into my old age, unfortunately.
      - epolanski 3d ago
        It seemed a very informative piece of journalism, very well done to be honest into the topic of "how the breach happened and how did Israeli intelligence failed". I did not like the narrative of equating the pains of the two sides though, because they are very different in every sense.
- estearum 4d ago
  Eh, October 7th quite literally kept Netanyahu out of prison, consolidated his power, and pushed all of his most important objectives forward. There's definitely a third possibility, which is that it served his purposes to "discount" intelligence.

cineticdaffodil 5d ago

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vkou 5d ago

The role they exist to perform is maintaining the American empire and hegemony, and they've done a pretty good job of that up until ~this year. 'Keeping Americans safe' is not on their agenda. If it were, they wouldn't be sticking America's hand into Middle Eastern quagmires, like the one that radicalized OBL and provided a training ground for his friends and allies. If it were, they wouldn't be working half as hard in demonstrating to hundreds of millions of people that yes, America does, in fact, mean them harm, and is happy to inflict that harm on them.

installiskeycon 5d ago
[dead]
ElProlactin 5d ago
> ...and they've done a pretty good job of that up until ~this year. Not really. When you look back, seeing how things turned out, history looks different than it almost certainly felt to most people at the time. It took 250-300 years for the Roman Empire to collapse. You could make a pretty strong argument that the US has been in decline for decades, and that cracks in Pax Americana were already forming during the Vietnam War era.
gumby 5d ago
> 'Keeping Americans safe' is not on their agenda. If it were, they wouldn't be sticking America's hand into Middle Eastern quagmires... Even though I agree with you that the US shouldn’t have been executing the foreign policy it did, especially in Western Asia, I’m going to push back on your statement. Since the 1920s, oil has been the #1 input to any industrialized economy, and since the 1960s, any economy. And since crude oil is the #1 commodity product (despite coming in different grades), it’s in not just the US’s interest but almost everybody’s interest to have a stable supply since a disruption anywhere causes pricing turmoil everywhere (as seen in the current situation). Without that, you disrupt food, healthcare, and production of almost any goods. So yes, it’s a form of self-interested safety. Naturally even when you consider this as the policy driver, plenty of people will misunderstand, sometimes willfully, and use the machine for other purposes. More importantly, though energy will remain the pre-eminent input to all economies,it no longer need be petrochemical. The US seems to be ignoring this, to its long (and short) term detriment.
- pfannkuchen 5d ago
  So if USA hadn’t interfered in the middle east or supported Israel, ever, the oil supply coming from the Middle East would be significantly less stable? How…?
- vkou 4d ago
  If energy security were that high a priority, the US would have been rushing head-first, instead of dragging its feet, in a transition off fossil fuels and onto renewables and energy independence. It's quite clearly not.
- peebee67 4d ago
  That's a really solid set of counterpoints to which I'd respond that the foreign policy has not merely been to maintain supply of oil, but to do so at discount prices and prevent other powers from developing it. This has demonstrably not improved stable access to oil and necessarily requires bringing an increasing fraction of the world to ruin and relative turmoil. In short, it's bad long-term strategy because it's not sustainable. Meanwhile, they've notably resisted efforts to diversify access to alternative sources of energy that'd reduce that reliance on oil.
CMay 4d ago
You have huge gaps in your understanding of history.

epolanski 4d ago

And Israel too, yet October 7th happened. This all goes to show that either the budgets are overblown or inefficiently used, in any case who's in charge is responsible.

neom 4d ago
Very good mini doc on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5gKaqOrCpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5gKaqOrCpk
- epolanski 4d ago
  PBS Frontline isn't a bad source of information, but too prone to making stories and narratives fit the 60 minutes mark even at the cost of heavy cherry picking and producing misrepresentations.
  - neom 4d ago
    True, but I think a lot of the reporting was done by WaPo who traditionally are not the worst offenders. Genuine question, do you think this particular video is sensationalism and cherry picking? It read as seeming credible to me, but I do worry I'm becoming more gullible/less critical thinking into my old age, unfortunately.
    - epolanski 3d ago
      It seemed a very informative piece of journalism, very well done to be honest into the topic of "how the breach happened and how did Israeli intelligence failed". I did not like the narrative of equating the pains of the two sides though, because they are very different in every sense.
estearum 4d ago
Eh, October 7th quite literally kept Netanyahu out of prison, consolidated his power, and pushed all of his most important objectives forward. There's definitely a third possibility, which is that it served his purposes to "discount" intelligence.