Hacker News

points by UltraSane 1 day ago | 0 comments

Elon actually bragged about destroying USAID on Twitter.

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead."

This is the richest man in the world being GLEEFUL abut destroying an organization that helps the poorest people in the world. Musk is basically Ebenezer Scrooge.

In an interview when asked about it he insisted their was vast amounts of fraud in USAID.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886307316804263979?lang=en

[–] scottyah 1 day ago

USAID was a pretty evil organization that was founded and used to bribe warring organizations under the guise of humanitarianism.

[–] archagon 1 day ago

Whatever USAID is guilty of, it is indisputable that thousands of people died from aid being suddenly cut off without a tapering period. You can find many news articles talking to people on the ground that confirm this.

[–] UltraSane 1 day ago

What does "bribe warring organizations " even mean?

[–] scottyah 10 hours ago

It was formed during the cold war to mingle in the proxy wars. We sent guns to the militias, and basically bribed towns and villages (by selective donations) to come to the USA's side. It's basically a mechanism to pay off warlord bribe demands.

[–] UltraSane 7 hours ago

It had the side effect of preventing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from starvation and disease

[–] MisterMower 8 minutes ago

Alternatively, it had the effect of impoverishing those same people by destroying any incentive to figure out how to produce their own food.

[–] MisterMower 1 day ago

The money was ostensibly used for noble purposes but usually ended up funding unsavory characters or organizations that are actually at cross purposes with stated US goals. A lot of humanitarian aid we send to the Middle Eastfor example, ends up in the hands of terrorists.[1]

1. https://oig.usaid.gov/node/7283

[–] defrost 1 day ago

> A lot of humanitarian aid ... ends up in the hands of terrorists.

Which you "prove" by linking to a story how $9 million was "diverted" (although the person responsible was caught and charged) out of a total of $12 billion.

That's 9 parts of 12 thousand or 0.075% that you are describing as "a lot".

[–] MisterMower 1 day ago

If you think that is the only instance of fraud you are deluding yourself.

[–] UltraSane 1 day ago

Please provide more examples.

[–] MisterMower 32 minutes ago

Here you go, from a five second Google search: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/usaid-official-and-three-corp...

There are others but I suspect there is no quantity or quality of examples that would change your mind.

Keep in mind that the fraud that is discovered and prosecuted is usually only a small fraction of what actually exists.

[–] defrost 1 day ago

It's your story - it's up to you to demonstrate the scale of loss.

So far all you have demonstrated is that US AID loses less aid money than CBH loses in grain to parrots each year.

If you think think that millions of tonnes of grain should be not transported because less than 1% is eaten by parrots then you're committed to starving millions of food.

[–] throwitaway222 1 day ago

MrBeast did more for people in Africa than USAID ever did. The only thing USAID tents were used for was filming ISIS videos.