Incredible how incompetent the CIA is lmao
Yeah, this is one of those really baffling things. I'd presume they actually want to keep informants and collaborators alive as long as it doesn't require anyone going out of their way. In this case it's hard to imagine how they could have done a poorer job. Which is probably for the best.
I've gotten the impression that, at least historically, the CIA achieves it's goals by throwing money, resources, at lives at the problem until something goes right for them. Like i'm sure they're competent sometimes, but other times it seems like they just have enough money to keep fucking up until they don't.
That's exactly how I square the circle of documented CIA incompetence but a lot of documented successes, too. The losses have no consequence because they have unlimited resources, only one or two (maybe a handful?) of technological peers, and they can generally tell law enforcement to move on. Easy to do all sorts of stuff right, eventually, if that's how you're working.