Even before DOGE blew the lid off of USAID’s sleazy bankrolling of transgressive social engineering projects from Ireland to Zimbabwe, anyone with common sense who pays a modicum of attention to international affairs already knew what was up.
Now, we have all the proof we could ever want — and so do the nation-states victimized by the brutal neoliberal machine.
Related: USAID Cuts Trigger Mass Layoffs at UN Migrant Agency
Russia got hip to the USAID scam relatively early on, expelling the “pro-democracy” (regime change) agency in Obama’s first term.
Via BBC, September 19, 2012 (emphasis added):
“The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has announced it will close its offices in Russia following an order from the authorities there to cease operations.
The Russian government gave the US until 1 October to close the mission, accusing it of meddling in politics.
USAID has worked in Russia for two decades, spending nearly $3bn (£1.8bn) on aid and democratic programmes.
The expulsion follows a government crackdown on pro-democracy groups.
“The decision was taken mainly because the work of the agency’s officials far from always responded to the stated goals of development and humanitarian cooperation. We are talking about attempts to influence political processes through its grants,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.”
Other countries at the time may have liked to follow suit, but they weren’t in the same advantageous economic or geopolitical position to rebuke the United States, lest their governments fall prey to the Pro-Democracy™ treatment themselves.
Everyone saw what Hillary Clinton’s State Department did to Gaddafi for the crime of exercising national will.
So they begrudgingly allowed USAID to continue to operate within their borders, trannifying their children and inciting racial animus at will just so long as the CIA didn’t run pro-Democracy™ coups on them.
Related: Uganda Passes ‘Anti-Gay’ Law, Western NGOs and Governments Threaten Sanctions
That dam has broken.
Via The Guardian (emphasis added):
“For authoritarian leaders worldwide, the agency’s dismantling represents a potential retreat of American democratic influence.
In Hungary, the Trump-allied prime minister, Viktor Orbán – fresh from December meetings with Trump and Elon Musk – celebrated what he termed the end of “globalist Soros” organizations.
El Salvador’s leader, Nayib Bukele, joined in, accusing the agency of funding “opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas and destabilizing movements”.
In Belarus, that country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, framed Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze as a response to his calls for a “reset” of bilateral relations.
Nicaragua’s state media, controlled by the family of the president, Daniel Ortega, declared that “Trump turned off the faucet” for what they labeled “terrorists”.
Venezuela’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, announced plans to investigate the agency, alleging that the “primary elections of the Venezuelan opposition were paid by the USAid”.
And in Azerbaijan, authorities had already pre-emptively refused to renew their cooperation agreement, explicitly challenging the agency’s political motivations.”
Reigning MSNBC intramural intern-pegging champion, Rachel Maddow, is none too pleased.
As a rule of thumb, if she’s shedding her gender-queer crocodile tears over a news development, it’s probably awesome news for the people of America.
Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.
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