The System

Intelligence is a cult. It's a cult of secrecy and God who knows what else. The problem is that those who do know what goes on, and the information they possess often has little impact on the development or outcome of a particular situation. Instead those in positions of power, those who can act, are often obsessed with other people like them, either in the Opposition or within the US intelligence community.

Furthermore, like a cult, the more you compromise yourself the more you move up the chain of command, and the more you are rewarded with a greater knowledge of the system. The increasing compromise of yourself, which comes about as a natural byproduct of doing your job, also ensures your silence, and that you will only blab to other people like you.

The problem with this system, of course, is that it's not that hard to figure out. And if you don't have a selfish motivation for participating in it, then you are unlikely to move up. If you have any brains you will also minimize the amount of self-compromise you do, as it will clearly be used against you later, perhaps in a court of law in the real world. The problem there is that this means jobs which require extralegal responses often won't get done, unless people in the system find suckers or criminals who are happy to do the job and to be left holding the bag.