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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Your glee at the unemployment of 13,706 people is nauseating. I am laying off all my staff because of the USAID shutdowns. The single moms, the dads with kids with cancer, the fresh-faced kids with their first apartment leases. And since my programs are shut down we aren’t stopping that Ebola outbreak in Uganda or preventing babies from getting Malaria in Nigeria. That’s what we all did all day. And we got paid the kind of salaries that people on this board scoff at, and we live in neighborhoods most of you won’t enter. Because we aren’t rolling in dough based on some big USAID fraud, right? We are nurses and social workers who use our skills in other countries.

What the F is WRONG with you?[/quote]

Why was USAID operating in Hungary?

https://rumble.com/v29a3te-usaid-in-hungary.html

Samantha Power didn't seem to think her mission was helping starving people in Africa, but rather building media operations to take out political opponents.[/quote]

Fascism has taken hold in Hungary. USAID projects provide soft diplomacy to promote democracy (in this case through a free press) as part of overall global stability efforts. There a reason authoritarian leaders or cheering on this effort to dismantle USAID.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/06/authoritarian-usaid-elon-musk

Please think through who is supporting the destruction if USAID and what they have to gain from it.[/quote]  Now you are agreeing that USAID has a primary mission of political interference.[/quote]

Stopping fascism is kind of important, no?[/quote]

DP.[b] Not our job. [/b]I don’t want Russia buying Facebook ads interfering with our elections and I don’t want to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. Especially an EU member.

The more I learn about USAID from the people DEFENDING  USAID the more I dislike it.

Aid in the form of medicine, food, infrastructure development?  Awesome. Knock yourself out.

Empire building, journalism (propaganda) and meddling in the internal affairs of another country?  No thank you. And frankly, I’m not going to get worked up over Elon and Co. putting a stop to that garbage.

If stopping Orban is so important to you, feel free to go over there and do it yourself. But not in my name.[/quote]

Just made me think of all the Americans, particularly during WWII, who were called up to fight against fascism and its spread. Their sacrifices, and the sacrifices made by others since, shouldn't be for nothing.

If a government doesn't like USAID programming in its country, it has a right to prevent it. USAID programming, such as training journalists, is clearly stated; it is not happening in a dark room under the cover of night.[/quote]

I’m thinking of the tens of thousands of Americans that died in Korea and Vietnam because we needed to stop the spread of communism there. Or in Iraq because we needed to spread democracy there.  I thought we’d learned to never make that kind of sacrifice of American lives (let alone local civilian lives).

The last thing I want is to see my children called or drafted into service over the internal affairs of some far off place and SOME OF the activities of USAID described here raise the risk of international confrontation.   I also don’t want to see that happen over something ad stupid as cheap goods and services.

If you really believe that fascism poses an existential threat to us right now feel free to go fight it yourself or sign your children up for it.

I don’t think it is as simple as a country simply saying they don’t want USAID programming, particular on the “soft” diplomacy stuff.  Sure, the tangible, material “aid” can be stopped. [b]The intangible is much harder to control. [/b]  [/quote]

Independent media training to a draft for all-out war against fascism. That's quite the leap.

But I'm interested in your comment about intangibles. I don't want to assume, so please share what you were thinking when you wrote that.[/quote]

I’m not the one using phrases like “stop fascism”. I’m not the one suggesting USAID is about American safety and security.  I’m not the one drawing comparisons to WWII level existential civilizational conflicts. I’m not the claiming that USAID is one leg in the American security stool (the others being intelligence and defense, presumably). That’s the people [b][i]defending[/i][/b] USAID.  So forgive me for taking these people at face value when they are the ones who keep saying this is about the very security and safety and viability of society.   These people sound like Kissinger and Paul Wolfowitz.

From the reports I’ve seen, it does not appear that USAID journalism is benign or neutral. There seems to be a correlation between USAID and impact journalism.  [/quote]

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