The US has the spy capacity to do something useful. Instead of spying on its own citizens how about working with countries to stop people from going to Syria to ISIS? We could stop the "regime change stuff that's caused previously unimaginable chaos and death. We could use our abilities to protect Christians and other minorities and protect heritage sites. Those kinds of things would win the US allies in the court of world opinion.
This administration has no morals. And the DC crowd by not doing something to stop ISIS and to stop Obama's destruction of civilization is part of the problem.
I agree with all of what you said. PLUS, I think that if we were killing off ISIS by the thousands (which we COULD do), they would not be so popular for recruiting purposes.