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Merged USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists? / Trump Was Absolutely Right to Shut Down USAID

Yes, he's realized from the bigly difficult IQ test that pointing to an animal and going 'giraffe!' makes the adults proud of him, so now he does it every time. Positive reinforcement.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
Yes, he's realized from the bigly difficult IQ test that pointing to an animal and going 'giraffe!' makes the adults proud of him, so now he does it every time. Positive reinforcement.
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Which is how back when he still had some lucidity - he managed to get to claiming Obama founded ISIS, the crowd kept applauding and cheering his negative comments regarding Obama and he kept giving them more. It's to me a fascinating watch as it shows how easy Trump is to being manipulated.

ETA: This clip was his "excuse" for the original claim, note how he ends up at the same claim yet again.

 
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Darat said:
Sadly such conspiracy claims have for decades harmed projects that were very good for people.
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You get that nobody is saying that ALL USAID projects were intelligence fronts, right? Probably the vast majority were legitimate projects - which doesn't mean I think they're all good and worthwhile projects, just not fronts.

Anyway... I'm assuming that you know Intel is a real thing that all of our countries do? And that some of that Intel work involves buy-offs and bribes and other means of gathering intel that aren't breaking in while wearing a black cashmere turtleneck and hopscotching over laser beams? That the majority of Intel is gathered either through cyber means or through human sources? And that Intel orgs don't really write "$1.2M to Bob the Janitor for getting us copies of the Vietnamese Ambassador's emails from the last 2 years"? More like "$1.2M Grant for Empowering Vietnamese Communications Studies" or something otherwise vague and random sounding.

Point being that actual intel work does happen, it cost money, and those costs are very frequently hidden or obscured. At the end of the day, the books need to balance... so we get $7,000 toilet seats and other silliness.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Why do you assert this? It was certainly used in tandem with the CIA in the past, why are you so confident that it no longer does at all?
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Starving refugees tend not to have high national intelligence value. Members of military coups who do usually don't need food. But they love them some guns.

And I don't know if you have noticed, but USaid has been cancelled by Trump. They burned all the stockpiled supplies and failed to pay the producers.
 
is the assertation that doge was trying to undermine the cia?

www.theguardian.com

We still don’t really know what Elon Musk’s Doge actually did

Calculating the actual savings and impact of the bulldozing US department that vowed to cut $1tn in waste is difficult
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

on a related note, citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington is one of several groups with active lawsuits against doge that the government continues to appeal trying to get some accountability for what even happened with doge and it's various defundings, including usaid. nobody knows how much they saved, what they even did, or if it even really existed as a government agency.

seems to me musk sent trump a bunch of money and bought twitter to get him elected, walked into the government and did whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted for a while until everyone got annoyed with him and scott bessent punched him in the eye. so you almost have to hope it was to undermine the cia, otherwise holy ◊◊◊◊ that's pretty bad isn't it?
 
Norman Alexander said:
Starving refugees tend not to have high national intelligence value. Members of military coups who do usually don't need food. But they love them some guns.
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Again, I will point out that nobody has claimed that ALL USAID endeavors were CIA fronts. Noting that the vast majority were probably legitimate doesn't imply that NONE were covers.

Also again... SPECULATIVE BUT PLAUSIBLE.
Norman Alexander said:
And I don't know if you have noticed, but USaid has been cancelled by Trump. They burned all the stockpiled supplies and failed to pay the producers.
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Yes, I noticed that the United States Agency for International Development was shut down, and that the remaining foreign assistance programs (which are few compared to where it started) was moved under the auspices of the State Department.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Again, I will point out that nobody has claimed that ALL USAID endeavors were CIA fronts. Noting that the vast majority were probably legitimate doesn't imply that NONE were covers.

Also again... SPECULATIVE BUT PLAUSIBLE.
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Perhaps you might care to speculate which USaid programs would potentially yield national intelligence value. About the only feasible channel would be getting CIA boots on the ground in unstable territory or countries, i.e. a bit of spying in war-torn locations. But you can get most of that info from satellite imagery and locals with smartphones on social media.

But "military instructors" or "diplomatic legations" or "education programs"...yeah, that's a different story!
Emily's Cat said:
Yes, I noticed that the United States Agency for International Development was shut down, and that the remaining foreign assistance programs (which are few compared to where it started) was moved under the auspices of the State Department.
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And the State Department has done sweet Fanny Adams. They're not going to help brown people, especially non-US brown people.
 
Norman Alexander said:
Perhaps you might care to speculate which USaid programs would potentially yield national intelligence value.
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I think you're completely missing the point here. The programs don't yield intel themselves. The argument (call it a conspiracy theory if it pleases you, as it's entirely speculative) is that some of the programs aren't programs - they're entries that allow the CIA (or intel org of your choice) to access funding without having to actually disclose what they're doing with the money.

As I mentioned above...

And that Intel orgs don't really write "$1.2M to Bob the Janitor for getting us copies of the Vietnamese Ambassador's emails from the last 2 years"? More like "$1.2M Grant for Empowering Vietnamese Communications Studies" or something otherwise vague and random sounding.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Are you even capable of considering a discussion without forcing it to be all about race? Is skin color the only thing you care about, and the only thing that defines a person in your eyes?
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Me, not a problem with skin colour. The current US administration does seem to have some issues with it though. They tie it to religion and worthiness to live in their country. Lucky I'm not a Yank!
 
Emily's Cat said:
You get that nobody is saying that ALL USAID projects were intelligence fronts, right? Probably the vast majority were legitimate projects - which doesn't mean I think they're all good and worthwhile projects, just not fronts.
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The prestige was referencing the idea that USAID was “mostly” a CIA front. He didn’t say where the claim came from although I can guess it was probably someone who has been on the Joe Rogan show a few times.

We know, of course, that US operations HAVE used aid programmes as cover for such things as finding out where bin Laden was. I remember that that was done under the guise of a vaccine programme in Pakistan.

USAID was not pure altruism, of course. It was a soft power initiative designed to spread good will with very cost-effective ways to reduce absolute poverty around the world. Elon Musk single-handedly destroyed all that good will and got nothing in return. In fact, I am sure that Space Nazi’s involvement has been a net negative.
 
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