The power of American Imperialism and intelligence agencies

The American public’s ignorance may be its downfall

Modern warfare is an extremely dangerous operation to carry out. From antipersonnel weapons the size of baseball bats that are capable of eliminating enemy targets from half a kilometer away, to explosives capable of annihilating hundreds of combatants at the click of a button, being a soldier in the post-World War II era is an occupation with potentially fatal consequences.

Technology has advanced at such a rapid pace that methods for exterminating modern military forces seem limitless. How is it that the United States, a country currently intervening in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan, is able to carry out constant conflict with a relatively small loss of American lives?

The answer is simple: intelligence agencies.

Intelligence agencies are the decisive difference between first-world militaristic states and third-world militaristic states.These agencies allow countries to collect and analyze information to support foreign policy, national defense, and law enforcement. Intelligence agencies provide generals and politicians with an endless amount of knowledge, enabling them to make educated decisions that can play a crucial role on the battlefield. If knowledge is power, intelligence agencies are the servants who hand over power on a silver platter. Knowing this, one should not be baffled at the abundance of intelligence agencies found in the U.S.

There are 16 intelligence agencies listed on the Director of National Intelligence’s website, all part of the United States Intelligence Community. Eight belong to the Department of Defense, two to the Department of Justice, two to the Department of Homeland Security, one to the Department of State, one to the Department of Treasury, one to the Department of Energy, and one independent of a federal department, the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to a 2013 press release from the Director of National Intelligence, the agencies’ combined spending budget was around $52 billion per fiscal year; specific expenditures remain intentionally undisclosed, which is where the issues arise.

The American public knows intelligence agencies access a vast supply of wealth. The American public knows intelligence agencies access a vast supply of knowledge. The American public does not know what is bought by this vast amount of wealth. The American public does not know what information intelligence agencies collect, nor the methods used to collect this information.

Very few Americans know the capabilities of U.S. military espionage technology, such as unmanned drones and data-collecting “super software.” Thus, very few Americans fear that their government is spying on them.

Even after whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden prove through leaked documents that, in the pursuit of protecting the American people from domestic and international threats, intelligence agencies infiltrate American phone, internet, and banking records.

The American public does not seem to understand the significance of such unlawful hoarding of private information.

Public ignorance of a government’s actions and motives enables rule without rules. If public ignorance enables a government to use unmanned predator drones to kill 255 to a possible 593 civilians in northwest Pakistan with no public backlash between the years of 2004 and 2016, as recorded in an International Security database, what stops the American government from racially profiling and illegally investigating its own civilians?

Photo by Jnn13 via CC BY-SA 3.0