Comment by throwawaymaths
2 days ago
what's with people not having beef with USAID? It's done so many crazy and bad things, for example:
USAID funded the hepatitis vaccination drive that the CIA used as a cover for espionage against the bin laden family, leading to polio outbreak in pakistan.
https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/he-led-cia-bin-laden-and-...
Distaste for USAID in any other time would be bipartisan; the Clinton Administration floated shuttering it too. If you go to DC a lot of insiders will say, 'yeah, USAID's got to go'.
This seems like a criticism of the CIA, not USAID, no?
> The decision to enlist Afridi was probably made by the CIA station chief in Islamabad and was passed on to the Counterterrorism Center back in Langley.
don't fool yourself. USAID had the power to stop this.
What makes you think so, exactly? It's not like CIA would let everyone within the organisation know they are doing it. Do you think USAID could just say no to CIA?
5 replies →
What in the world is going on with this country? How did we let ourselves be ruled by people who think such nonsense?
1 reply →
I didn't bring this up because it would be controversial on this website. I think USAID is a tool for advancing US geopolitical interests aims first and foremost and I would like it to be abolished as well. But someone like Musk wanting it to be shuttered doesn't make sense because these organisation in one way or another advance the interests of US businesses and he would benefit from that as well.
I think USAID could certainly be classified as “soft power.” I think throwing it all out makes little sense in light of the provably good things it did.
I think that any sufficiently big organization has done bad things, this alone shouldn't be enough to close an agency.
However, I'm sure Cia has done, does, and will do much worse things than usaid
Vaccination campaigns are “crazy and bad” because they might be hijacked by the CIA?
I think you’ve identified the wrong culprit there buddy.
not might. Were. A USAID that isn't problematic would have stopped it. It failed to; just one symptom of the problems at USAID.