Fifteen years ago when I was in the Southern Philippines, USAID had just built a water treatment plant for a local community on one of the islands where some Islamist groups were trying to recruit. (Abu Sayyaf was the more problematic one, but also Jemaah Islamiyah and the local crew, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or 'MILF' as they amusingly chose to be called.) They also funded the local schools and, importantly, provided the textbooks to those schools -- textbooks that described the American influence otherwise than as a Great Satan, but pointed out helpful things that came to everyone in the area from the relationship.They had relationships throughout the limited local government even in that remote corner of the world. They knew people who could get things done. And, most likely, they provided a cover for clandestine operations and officers as necessary to target the radical Islamist groups using the area.
Our new Secretary of State, Rubio, agrees with that opinion. He exempted the Philippines and Taiwan from the aid freeze after review. It sounds like he is chiefly interested in the Chinese-backed insurgency (the Maoists are indeed quite dangerous and a form of power projection by the PRC).
2 comments:
No
I’ll pass.
We have been raped by government far too long. No more.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/
Epoch time ran an article about the scope of the fraud that is being uncovered in federal govt
Worth the read
“Bessent ‘Slightly Shocked’ by Scale of Fraud Uncovered by DOGE”
Perhaps paying off the debt would be good before revisiting “AID”
You don’t wanna give junkies some smack after they’ve been dried out
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