With the U.S. intelligence community's recent reversal of the 2005 judgment that Iran is actively seeking a nuclear weapon, questions of trust have re-emerged. Should Americans rely on U.S. intelligence to tell us what we need to know about closed societies such as totalitarian regimes or terrorist groups like Al-Qaida?
You ask “Should Americans rely on U.S. intelligence to tell us what we need to know about closed societies such as totalitarian regimes or terrorist groups like Al-Qaida?” I ask in response “As opposed to what?” Are there other sources of information we (and I use the term “we” loosely, as I am unlikely to be privy) have available? That is a serious question – I don’t know.
More importantly, as the first poster has said, there appear to be agendas everywhere one turns. Foremost of these is the fact that our President seems disinclined to listen to anyone, including our own intelligence services. So in actual fact, what difference does it truly make what kind of information “we” have, or where it came from? If our sole response to any input is going to be “stay the course,” we can save a lot of money by disbanding all sources of input.
For myself, I see only two alternatives with any hope of benefit to us as a country. Either we just go ahead and declare “Pax Americana” and set about militarily ruling the world, or we return to a more “Monroe Doctrine” way of looking at things. As I believe that sticking our fingers into every country in the world is a phenomenally boneheaded idea, I’ll go with the latter.
So “Should Americans rely on U.S. intelligence to tell us what we need to know…?” Sure, why not? I could make it all up myself with as much effect, but then a whole bunch of civil-service types (who, for the most part, I’m guessing do the best they possibly can) would be out of a job.
The nature of rumors and wars
With every side skewing their own versions to fit their own political agendas about the best we can do is accept what all sides claim in common and agree upon those few points while taking the differences (even our own) with heavy grains of salt. This approach I learned during the Vietnam War era while listening to a variety of shortwave radio broadcasts originating from all sides of the conflict.