Unreliable Intelligence

Rob the average man of his life-illusion, and you rob him of his happiness at the same stroke. - Henrik Ibsen

The New York Times on July 19, 2006 questioned the reliability and competence of the CIA and Israel intelligence to detect weapons shipments. No we cannot rely on our government intelligence. Still, this failure will only cause an increase in their budget. The intelligence was wrong about WMDs in Iraq and thousands of Americans have died in Iraq and more continue to die each week. The nation is plunged into debt that unborn children will have to pay. Yes, I would say our bad intelligence has been a Catastrophe.

I do not trust our government or any other government. I don't believe anything the CIA or Israel says. Whatever they say it is to protect their careers and evoke empathy or some other outcome. Still people will go to war over beliefs, instead of facts, which is why I would be cautious about believing anything my government says. Each government tries to say they want to protect us from that other evil government. Tribal chiefs and witch doctors have used fear for centuries to say the tribe in the next valley is about to attack. What each government wants is to control their own populace. All of the fear mongering is to make government necessary. Imagine if the world was all at peace and free trade prevailed. Governments would create a villain, even if it was space invaders! War is the health of the state. There is a defense contractor or sub contractor in each congressional district. Labor and anti war liberals promote war. The two liberal senators in Washington state vote for more and more defense and they claim to be liberal. People vote their fears and vices instead of their principles and virtues. Many people love the safety of authoritarian governments, thinking the authority will only be used on others.

If you ask most people if they were a dog, would they want to live wild and free, or would they prefer to live as a house pet. Most people would chose the ease and safety of being a house pet because people chose what will give them more pleasure than pain. They assume their master will be benevolent. They assume the government will also be a benevolent master. Little do they suspect their kind master will turn into a cruel master.

If a dirty bomb kills a million people that will be about 1/3 of 1% of the population. The Civil War killed 2% of the population! We should get out of foreign involvements and reduce the chance of another terrorists attack. I fail to see how our support of a theocracy in Israel is making us safer. Don't let them scare you into compliance. They want us fearful. I saw how a union can instill fear among its members and galvanize them for a strike, a strike that was unnecessary. The government wants us compliant. They want us to let them do the thinking and they want us to stop asking questions. They gain power, glory, and good pensions from our compliances and fears.

My friend Don said Christians do not kill other Christians like Muslims kill other Muslims. Christians killing Christians happened all over Europe during the past centuries. And the Christians in our civil war killed each other as they prayed for their god to make them victorious. Lucky for us god did not answer all their prayers.

Preemptive strikes are rarely justified. Real self defense is justified. If I choose to make a preemptive strike against my neighbor who points a gun at me, it is likely I will be arrested. There will be an investigation to see if I was justified in my action. There is no such investigation when one state attacks another just because the other state has missiles. We just have the word of the attacker, who may be lying.

Charles Tolleson