> Those upsides could have also been accomplished by pointing the CIA at Venezuela to do the same thing they've been doing across South America for the past fifty years
Has the CIA actually advanced American interests in South America? Legitimate question. My layman's understanding is they serially fucked the theatres they were assigned to alongside America's reputation in exchange for, at best, short-term U.S. wins.
"Has the CIA advanced American interests" is the wrong question. The CIA does not work for "The United States" proper, it works for a tiny section of it that comprises the ruling elites. Those people certainly enjoyed significant material benefits from CIA actions in Guatemala, Panama, El Salvador, etc.
> 4 decades of James Bond, Tom Clancy, Homeland, Zero Dark Thirty
Not really. See [1]. A competent clandestine service lets one achieve foreign policy goals without going to war.
But more to the point, pretending everything one doesn't like is an elite conspiracy is self defeating. If you want to gut the CIA, convince voters to hate it.
>Not superbly. But more than the IRS, DoJ or Department of Education.
Three letter agency that mostly harasses people outside US borders polls higher among US voters than three letter agencies that do most of their harassing within US borders. Water is wet.
Has the CIA actually advanced American interests in South America? Legitimate question. My layman's understanding is they serially fucked the theatres they were assigned to alongside America's reputation in exchange for, at best, short-term U.S. wins.