21–30 of 145 posts
This is such a bizarre story. It doesn't even seem like it was "the US" as much as it was an overeager and undersupervised team within USAID. It's sad, too, because USAID does good work in a lot of places around the world, and that works is undermined if (rightly or wrongly; seemingly rightly in this case) host governments think that USAID is an arm of the US intelligence community.
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I am so disappointed. The kinds of outreach and charity provided by USAID isn't perfect, but the intent behind it was always good. Heck, if anything I'm really, really proud of the humanitarian work the U.S. government does, including USAID at State and NIH and CDC at HHS. Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions, never mind the fact that the outcomes (especially in the Americas) for…
Is it? Oppressive regimes can pose a direct threat to human well-being and sometimes the best thing you can do for people's humanity is to overthrough said regime.
I've been wondering when a government sponsored excursion into twitter astroturfing would come up...it is trivially easy to build a network of fake accounts and to have them followed by hundreds of thousands of fake accounts. As follower count is the main way that people seem to validate accounts, and Twitter has little incentive to stop puffed up accounts, how hard would it be during a revolt to fake something atroc…
And that's available as an off-the-shelf product of defense/intelligence contractors: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntrepid
I'm really curious about this paragraph: "...launched shortly after the 2009 arrest in Cuba of American contractor Alan Gross. He was imprisoned after traveling repeatedly to the country on a separate, clandestine USAID mission to expand Internet access using sensitive technology that only governments use." expand internet access with technology only governments use? Is this just some shoddy reporting from a writer w…
I am so disappointed. The kinds of outreach and charity provided by USAID isn't perfect, but the intent behind it was always good. Heck, if anything I'm really, really proud of the humanitarian work the U.S. government does, including USAID at State and NIH and CDC at HHS. Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions, never mind the fact that the outcomes (especially in the Americas) for…
I am so disappointed. The kinds of outreach and charity provided by USAID isn't perfect, but the intent behind it was always good. Heck, if anything I'm really, really proud of the humanitarian work the U.S. government does, including USAID at State and NIH and CDC at HHS. Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions, never mind the fact that the outcomes (especially in the Americas) for…
> Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions Is it? Oppressive regimes can pose a direct threat to human well-being and sometimes the best thing you can do for people's humanity is to overthrough said regime.
This is such a bizarre story. It doesn't even seem like it was "the US" as much as it was an overeager and undersupervised team within USAID. It's sad, too, because USAID does good work in a lot of places around the world, and that works is undermined if (rightly or wrongly; seemingly rightly in this case) host governments think that USAID is an arm of the US intelligence community.
I never heard of a work of USAID that does not involve US trying to enforce his vision of politics in the country. Could you please illuminate me?
As an example, look at the recent article from HN about Romania's brutal dictatorship.[1] VoA helped to play a major role by inspiring hope and providing alternative viewpoints within an oppressive system.
Efforts like this (bringing internet connectivity and alternative service to oppressive regimes which filter internet access) are the VoA of our times.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Overthrowing governments is completely at odds with humanitarian missions Is it? Oppressive regimes can pose a direct threat to human well-being and sometimes the best thing you can do for people's humanity is to overthrough said regime.
When are we going after the house of Saud?
There's actually been increased isolation from Saudi Arabia over the past year.