The receipts are there. USAID paid off over 9,000 “journalists” as part and parcel of the CommunistsDemocrats annihilating the free press in this country. These figures are from 2023. Nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6 m) was pushed through a secretive NGO called “Internews Network.” The NGO worked with 4,291 media outlets and produced, in one year, 4,799 hours of broadcasts.
Internews Network (IN) has offices in many countries with main offices in the US, London and Paris. IN has at least six captive subsidiaries under unrelated names. Since 2008, more than 95% of IN’s budget has been supplied by the US government. IN has been in the thick of social media censorship activites.
Let’s be reminded that USAID, the source of this funding, is a CIA operation. Food, clean water, medicine and global aid may have been the visible claim by the USAID administrators. However, as the surfacing receipts show, that was always just a cover for their activity in political influence operations.
As Sundance notes:
To understand the issues as they are now surfacing it is very important to retain clear context.
USAID was a sub-silo, a child of the parent organization, the CIA. The CIA controlled the Big Picture, and USAID was the institution to carry out the objective.
When you see a controversial issue within the USAID operation reaching sunlight, always remember it is the CIA behind it. When USAID targeted a foreign government for removal, it was the CIA behind it. When USAID engaged with domestic and foreign media to control mis-dis-malinformation, it is the CIA behind it. The CIA is defining the information.
When USAID pressured various global news agencies and organized advertiser boycotts against information sources averse to the interests of USAID, it is the CIA behind it. When USAID funds the Clinton Foundation, or McCain Institute, or any of the cause celebre’ NGOs you now see in the headlines, it is factually the CIA behind them. When USAID funds media for influence control, it is the CIA behind it.
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When you see media outlets, or NGOs on the left and right side of the information system being given funds (directly or indirectly) though the USAID funding silo, keep in mind this it is essentially the CIA behind it.
The Central Intelligence Agency is the only silo within Washington DC, specifically empowered to operate in complete darkness. There is zero CIA oversight, and the mission mandate as authorized by congress permits the CIA to remain entirely closed from any oversight or scrutiny. The CIA is also authorized to lie about anything as part of their “national security” mission.
It is through that larger IC prism that all information about USAID operations should be evaluated.
Will USAID survive the ax that is headed that way? I do not know. Whatever legitimate functions exist within its framework should be offloaded to other areas of the State Department. We must get the CIA out of its operations.