So the king of assasins is “a nice guy” and “affable” but the people he kills are… “terrorist spore”. Thanks, Propagandaweek. It’s kind of amazing, in a we-live-in-a-nightmarish-post-democracy sort of way.
Uh, sorry to pop your bubble full of rainbows and unicorns, but EVERY country has an equivalent service and an equivalent guy. Everyone plays the Spy Game and they all play for keeps.
Now, what I would like to see is a profile of our real-world equivalent of “Q”.
“Now, listen closely, 007. . . .”
Nonsense. Even if they all wanted to (which is doubtful) most countries can’t afford anything “equivalent” to the CIA, with its $15 billion annual budget 1. The combined annual budget of the US intelligence agencies is $52+ billion 2. And that doesn’t count military intelligence groups which may have separate budgets. That number $52 billion is more than the entire annual expenditure of most nations 3.
But that’s besides my original point, which was that Newsweek’s story reads like state-sponsored PR, just overflowing with positive comments and praise for this new lord of the spies.
Source on CIA and US Int budget numbers
Another source on US Int Budget
List of government budgets by country
When was the last time a Central American country backed a coup to overthrow the U.S. government?
Does Cuba count?
Citations?
Here’s a hint: MOST nation’s Intelligence Budgets aren’t PUBLIC. Secondly, a LOT of our intel goes into what is euphemistically referred to as “national technical means”. Meaning Spy Satellites, which aren’t cheap, even as satellites go. 1 Estimates for a 1980’s spy sat in current dollars is 2-3 billion EACH. Now, I don’t know how many current spy sats we have, but I’m going to guess at LEAST 10, and we seem to launch several every year, so call that 10 billion.
Then you add in ground infrastructure, which, from my experience, equals that of the bird in cost (I’ve worked in Aerospace, and seen budgets for Commercial sat programs, and the rule of thumb holds there. Add Government costs and Classified, it’s probably more than that. . . ). So my guess ? At least half, if not more, is “national technical means”. And that includes ALL the lovely programs that Snowden kindly let us all in on. . . I don’t know if you’ve seen the parking lots at NSA and CIA. . .but there are obviously huge amounts of people working there from the overhead view, , ,
As for Newsweek, well, they’re media. And lately, unless there’s a scandal, all the coverage makes .gov types look like a cross between the Buddha, Jesus, and Superman. . .
Just playing off the constant insinuations that Castro tried to kill Kennedy…
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