You're going to have to rely on A) "piecemeal reading of events" and B) the lens that someone is pulling the strings to see anything other than what the powers that be put out through the media and foreign policy authors. So no, I'm no master of foreign policy, but I've done plenty of my own research, and reading between the lines I've determined there is a high likelihood that there are hidden actors doing major things, and therefore that the conspiracies are the bread crumb trail to something big, specifically within the United States Intelligence Community and the Military Industrial Complex. The school of thought you seem to be representing likely never acknowledges such--so it's like: who cares how much foreign policy knowledge you have when it's all geared away from so called "conspiracy theories."

All you need to do is use personal logic. Take JFK as an example: a man killed JFK. Then he was killed. And then within 3 years that guy was dead too. Is that not extremely fishy. Gun to my head and I have to make a split second decision whether that was a plot or not--the logical answer, for me at least, is that it's a plot. There are too many things like that. And all those events will never be proven until they are, at which point we'll be living in a very different world. That was their whole point--to hide and obscure what really happened and true intents. All these so called conspiracies were carried out by extremely powerful and formidable people with the sole aim of keeping them secret--do you think it will easily come out. Of course not. But with too many discrepancies it's become increasingly difficult to believe anymore.

All you really need to do is watch this short interview of General Wesley Clark on his shock about our pre-planned strategy to invade a bunch of Middle Eastern countries and--provided this guy is real--you know something is up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojcoKnTGf4s&feature=share

Anyway brother, just remember one's true intent is extremely easy to conceal if that is your goal. Do you think all the true intents of all the politicians and heads of states are really out out there worn as a pin on their breast? No, it's not. If they are smart they will always find ways to make it seem like the enemy's fault, e.g. Saddam Hussein invading kuwait because what he claims was them lending Iraq money to fight Iran and benefiting from it and therefore should mean the debt is wiped clean. I'm not saying whatever nonsense he had in his head wasn't "nonsense" or that he wasn't working is way through Kuwait to Saudi Arabia. What I'm saying is a power as powerful as the United States can dodge and weave and use any circumstances to its advantage. That's part of the advantage of being the top dog--you can counter punch anything and still come out unscathed. But it doesn't make it right when the powerful intentionally blow things out of proportion to attain an aim the public would otherwise not support. And it's definitely not right if they fabricate lies to do so. I do believe everything is a matter of degree, and do I believe the US is far on the evil side? No. Do I believe they've taken it too far and tipped the see-saw to a very dangerous side. This I know to be true, even if they have been wrongly pegged by conspiracy theorists--their handling of conspiracy theories alone has been egregious in its inability to allow for any perspective other than a hyper patriotic one; no perspective is allowed other than one that thinks America can do no evil. I think it can, and I don't think the thought needs to be the end of us, but rather the beginning of a conversation and hopefully a new era. Either way, it's going to take something big to reverse the dangerous course we're on.

So no I'm not convinced America is a benevolent force operating for the broadest picture of the greater good, and I'm not going to be intimidated by anyone who's read tomb after tomb of perspectives biased toward the anglo-saxon tradition/hierarchy of the west or whatever you wanna call it. The west has been dominating the world in the open for Millenia. With the advent of media and various news networks, it now needs to do so in the shadows. I highly doubt the agenda has changed. I highly doubt those with lots to gain are able to see how ends-justify-the-means-mentality is not in interest of the biggest picture for humanity when they stand to benefit in the immediate short term by such actions. I do believe they think they are doing good. I dont believe in James Bond villains. I believe their perspective is outdated, skewed by self-interest and will not ultimately create a cooperative more integrated world as they hope. We have gun-to-your-head peace in the world now, thanks to the US. History has told us that never lasts. Somebody will creep up behind us and eat our lunch, and use our same aggressive tactics against us, and at this point in history with so much technological progress, it might be catastrophic. In short, America needs to lead by not muscling around so much. Our time will come unless we start to back down. It's as simple as that. We're dealing with people who have the thought process that you can only stay on top by ruling through strength. And I disagree. My opinion is it lasts for a time, but always comes to an end, and that what has far more longevity is a cooperative attitude that sometimes requires backing down, specifically when ur wrong. But America won't back down even when they're wrong--hence we never apologized for Vietnam, hence our approaching 20 years in the middle east that didn't need to happen. I firmly believe we should 100% get out today, and that THAT would be the best decision for humanity, even if it leaves things in a disarray. Most people believe we now have to pick up the pieces for the mess we made. Well, that's about to lead to us in Syria, etc, and all the other countries General Wesley Clark says has been on our list since 2001. Yea, we need to get out immediately. The world doesn't want this. It's only a matter of time before it results in a major conflict. In addition, it's just wrong. It's not the right way to go about it. You can't make a cooperative world through the lack of it. What goes around will eventually come around. America is the Roman Empire and it doesn't need to go down in flames--rather it can be a stepping stone to a more conscious cooperative planet. But our invasions will lead to us going down in flames, regardless of what good intents we can get the media and foreign policy authors to claim it was about.

So unless you're a foreign policy expert trying to see everything through the lens of "who's really pulling the strings," I don't value much what such a writer says. The reality is all the writers that are looking for whose pulling the strings are cast off as conspiracy theorists. So you're basically saying: if you don't trust the consensus the powers that be and the media put out, your point of view is a conspiracy theory or that of a dilettante. That's unfair and nonsense. The good thing is that times are changing--most educated people in their 20s and 30s, that i meet at least, believe the conspiracies or strongly entertain them. The world is changing, and though we may not have proof, we aren't stupid and it's not going to last much longer. Trump is a reflection of that. He may be egregious, but it's a step toward unraveling the powers that be within the Intelligence/Military Industrial Complex.