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Comment by throwawaymaths | Hacker News Reader

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'.

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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?

IF YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH LYING TO PEOPLE AND NOT ADMINISTERING VACCINES AND DOING DNA TESTS, THEN IT IS YOUR INDVIDUAL DUTY TO STOP YOUR ORG FROM CONTINUING.

....what happened with your capslock?

Again, do you think the head of USAID could have just told the head of CIA "no we're not doing this"?

What makes you think they were informed at all? That's kind of the entire MO of CIA - they don't inform other agencies what they are doing when it concerns national security, they just go and do it.

let me spell it out for you:

If you're a midlevel program manager (or whatever role label they have) at USAID you should be noticing that vaccines are not being given out. If USAID doesn't have the capability to monitor its programs to the point where that level of accountability exists, then it shouldn't exist.

Look, we can both play this game - let me spell this out for you the 3rd time

"do you think the head of USAID could have just told the head of CIA "no we're not doing this"?"

>>If USAID doesn't have the capability to monitor its programs to the point where that level of accountability exists

If you think CIA hasn't thought about this and addressed it some other way, then I guess the assumption we're working with is that CIA is literally incompetent at their actual job.

You're barking at the wrong tree. Be angry at CIA for doing this shit, not at USAID for running a program that got hijacked by them.

Yes absolutely they could... as evidenced by the fact that WE FOUND OUT and the CIA got in trouble for it?

What in the world is going on with this country? How did we let ourselves be ruled by people who think such nonsense?

I postulate a slow, multi-generational decline in critical thinking skills (maybe this is driven, at least partially, by the over abundance of unchallenging media/entertainment) coupled with grievance politics and the bucket-of-crabs mentality that sets in when people start to sense the “pie getting smaller” or at least having reached its peak size.

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.

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