Tag: regime change

The Demise of USAID: Few Regrets in Latin America

“Take your money with you,” said Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, when told about Trump’s plans to cut aid to Latin America, “it’s poison.”

USAID (US Agency for International Development) spends around $2 billion annually in Latin America, which is only 5% of its global budget. The temporarily closed-down agency’s future looks bleak, while reactions to its money being cut have been wide-ranging. Only a few were as strong as Petro’s and many condemned the move. For example, WOLA (the Washington Office on Latin America), a leading “liberal” think tank which routinely runs cover for Washington’s regime-change efforts, called it Trump’s “America Last” policy.

While USAID does some good – such as removing landmines in Vietnam (themselves a product of US wrongdoing) – as an agency of the world’s hegemon, its fundamental role is aligned with projecting US world dominance.

Not unexpectedly, the corporate media have largely come to the rescue of USAID. They try to give the impression that they are mainly concerned that some countries would be badly effected by its loss. In fact, the follow-the-flag media understand that USAID is part of the imperial toolkit.

Both the Los Angles Times and Bloomberg suggested that USAID’s shutdown would “open the door” to China. The Associated Press described the withdrawal of aid as a “huge setback” for the region; the BBC echoed these sentiments. The NYT and other mainstream media point to the irony that many of its programs help stem outward migration from Latin America, an issue which is otherwise at the top of Trump’s agenda.

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Why did Republicans fund ‘transgender dance’ in Bangladesh?

As Trump attacks foreign spending on “woke” initiatives, a GOP-aligned outfit has largely escaped scrutiny, despite using taxpayer funds to sponsor “transgender dance performances” and what it called the “largest published survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh.” 

According to documents obtained by The Grayzone, the US-funded International Republican Institute sees gay and transgender people as uniquely disruptive actors who can be deployed to manipulate political realities overseas, stating, “LGBTI people tend to participate in social change activities to eventually bring changes to politics.”

Read part one of The Grayzone’s investigation into International Republican Institute’s activities in Bangladesh here.

For years, the Republican Party-aligned International Republican Institute’s (IRI) agenda in Bangladesh has been dominated by ethnic minority and transgender issues, with leaked documents revealing the Institute sponsored “the largest published survey of LGBTI people in Bangladesh” and that a full 24% of the 1,868 Bangladeshis who participated in IRI programs in 2019 and 2020 were transgender.

The IRI’s cultural activities were conducted with explicitly subversive objectives, aiming to recruit socially excluded groups as regime change activists. They mirrored the US government’s machinations in Cuba, where, as The Grayzone reported, USAID funded rappers, artists, and “desocialized and marginalized youth” to undermine the country’s socialist government.

Since its founding in 1983, the congressionally-funded IRI has been run by Republican politicians and operatives dedicated to the cause of “democracy promotion” abroad. IRI’s Chairman, Sen. Dan Sullivan, is a vehement opponent of same sex marriage who signed on to a GOP letter calling to restrict the participation of transgender youth in sports. While many of the institute’s board members are Never Trump Republicans like Sen. Mitt Romney, the board also includes Sen. Tom Cotton, a top Trump ally who strongly opposes transgender medical interventions for youth.

The IRI’s eyebrow-raising statistics on trans participation in regime change activities were included in an internal report on its PAIRS (“Promoting Accountability, Inclusivity, and Resiliency Support”) Program, which was obtained by The Grayzone in 2024. The report boasts that “IRI issued 11 advocacy grants to artists, musicians, performers or organizations that created 225 art products addressing political and social issues that were viewed nearly 400,000 times [and] supported three civil society organizations from LGBTI, Bihari and ethnic communities to train 77 activists and engage 326 citizens to develop 43 specific policy demands, which were proposed before 65 government officials.”

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Need Proof of USAID Funding Being Utilized to Orchestrate Coup D’Etat? Look No Further Than Joe Biden’s Own Admission

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, along with a team of young men at the Department of Government Efficiency, dealt a massive blow to the bureaucratic ‘Deep State’ last week with the temporary pause on funding to USAID.  The organization has previously come under scrutiny for its lack of transparency in how it allocates its almost $50 billion in funding, with many suggesting that the organization is a “front for the CIA.”

J. Michael Waller, author of Big Intel: How the CIA and FBI Went From Cold War Heroes to Deep State Villians,” pushed back on the “front for the CIA” claim in a post on X.  In it, he claimed, “It’s worse than that.  USAID became its own unaccountable covert operations agency.  USAID ran covert ops without presidential finding as required by law.”

While most of the “covert ops” may, in fact, be opaque and without presidential findings, not all are.  On Wednesday, Just The News reported on several examples of USAID exerting influence on foreign countries to sway political winds in favor of U.S. interests.

Among them was the East-West Management Institute, a Soros Open Society-backed organization that also received more than $260 million in USAID grants over the years.  This money, according to Just The News, was used to “promote rule of law in Georgia, strengthen civil society in Uganda, and advance Serbia’s accession talks with the European Union.”

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‘Red Hand’ Revolt in Serbia: People Power or Color Revolution?

For six weeks now, Serbia has been rattled by what purports to be a student rebellion, leading to the prime minister’s resignation last week and rumors of a snap election. Students from sixty-three colleges of five state and two private universities, as well as four high schools, have emerged as the biggest challenge to the Progressive Party rule – and fueled rumors of yet another “color revolution.”

On Thursday, thousands of students rallied in the capital, Belgrade, and set out to Novi Sad – the second-largest city in Serbia and the site of a tragedy that has served as the trigger for the entire crisis. The concrete canopy of the Novi Sad railway station, built in 1964 but recently renovated as part of a bullet-train project, collapsed on November 1 and killed fifteen people.

Serbia is the largest of the six successor states of the former Yugoslavia (Kosovo, a breakaway Serbian province that the United States and its allies consider the seventh, doesn’t count). Belgrade has no intent of joining NATO, which bombed Serbia in 1999 to occupy and detach Kosovo, and officially aspires to join the European Union – but has so far refused to go along with the bloc’s sanctions regime against Russia.

All of this has obviously made Serbia a place of considerable interest to Moscow, Beijing, Brussels and Washington alike. President Aleksandar Vucic has managed to parlay his balancing diplomacy into a flow of infrastructure and industrial investments, such as the high-speed train project to the Hungarian border.

Opposition parties backed by the West have long accused the Progressives of skimming funds from these construction projects – as they have done while in power – and quickly seized on the Novi Sad tragedy to demand resignations and arrests. They followed the same playbook as in 2023, when a mass shooting at a Belgrade school was harnessed into “Serbia against violence” protests to demand regime change. Vucic responded at the time by calling a snap election, which the Progressives easily won, however.

At first the Novi Sad protests looked like another street performance that would fizzle out. Everything changed when students of two Belgrade university schools walked out of class on November 21. The following day, a group of theater students blocked the street outside their school, and got into a fight with several motorists who tried to get through. The incident triggered a domino effect at Belgrade colleges, with self-appointed “student soviets” (plenum) eventually demanding the arrest and identification of the attackers – who they claimed were ruling party activists – and the release and full pardon of all students involved in the fracas.

Since then, student groups have blocked strategic streets in Belgrade for at least fifteen minutes every day, around the time of the canopy’s collapse. They have also expanded their demands: for the government to publish all the records related to the railway station’s reconstruction, and to increase the higher education budget by 20%.

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‘Scorecard, Scorecard, You Can’t Tell al-Qaeda Without a Scorecard’

When I was a child attending Cleveland Indian baseball games at the old Municipal Stadium a thin man in an Indians’ baseball cap ran up and down the aisles hawking scorecards and calling out, “Scorecard, scorecard, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.”

He was right. The scorecards would give you the player’s name, number, and position. Then you would open to a page where you could engage in the fine art of keeping score, tracking the runs, hits and errors, through esoteric notations on the scorecard.

Baseball has changed over time. Designated hitters changed the game’s strategy; limits on visits to the mound and the pitch clocks sped up play. Scorecards are now digital. And the Cleveland Indians changed their name to the Guardians.

Which brings me to Syria.

The topic of Syria seems to have the full attention of the Senate Intelligence committee when it comes to reviewing the deposed Assad Regime, but lacks an understanding of the role that the CIA has played in putting al-Qaeda, or whatever you want to call it, in the driver’s seat in Damascus.

Yes, you read that right, U.S. tax dollars, errantly or not, poured into the hands of jihadists, al-Qaeda consorts, motley adventurers and soldiers of fortune, with the end of ousting Assad.

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Syria’s De Facto Authorities Execute ‘Sweeping’ Neoliberal Reforms

The self-appointed transitional government in Syria is undertaking sweeping internal reforms, including privatizing state-run enterprises and laying off a third of the public sector, as authorities say they are shifting to “a competitive free-market economy.”

In an interview with Reuters, ex-officials of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who are serving as cabinet ministers for transitional President Ahmad al-Sharaa – former ISIS and Al-Qaeda commander Abu Mohammad al-Julani – say they have a “wide scope” of plans to shrink the state, including removing thousands of “ghost employees.”

“The goal is to balance private sector growth with support for the most vulnerable,” interim Minister of Finance Basil Abdel Hanan told the British outlet.

Hanan previously served as economy minister in Idlib’s HTS-led administration. During this time, the group financed its operations by imposing high taxes on citizens, including taxes on humanitarian aid delivered by the UN. Reports from Arabic media in 2022 disclosed that HTS authorities funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Turkiye by confiscating humanitarian aid shipments and subsequently selling them on the black market.

The Syrian officials also told Reuters that they want Syrian factories to “serve as a launchpad” for global exports.

Nonetheless, discontent is growing throughout Syria due to the layoffs, despite the assurances from western-backed officials. “My salary helps me manage basic needs, like bread and yogurt, to sustain the household. If this decision goes through, it will increase unemployment across society,” stated Adham Abu al-Alaya, one of the many public sector workers currently on a three-month paid leave while their job status is evaluated.

The reforms also come as the country is gripped by a wave of sectarian killings and executions carried out by armed groups under the command of the transitional government’s Military Operations Department.

“[The killings are] normal and may continue for two or three years,” Sharaa said behind closed doors, according to Syrian sources who spoke with The Cradle.

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Did a Trump executive order just cripple the global US regime change network?

With federal funding paused to USAID, pro-Western media outlets from Ukraine to Nicaragua are panhandling for donations, and a multi-billion dollar regime change apparatus is in panic mode.

Among the flurry of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump in the first days of his administration, perhaps the most consequential to date is one titled, “reevaluating and realigning US foreign aid.”

Under this order, a 90-day pause was instantly enforced on all US foreign development assistance across the globe – excepting, of course, the largest recipients of US aid in Israel and Egypt. For now, the order forbids the disbursement of federal funding for any “non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors” charged with delivering US “aid” programs overseas.

Within days, hundreds of “internal contractors” at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) were placed on unpaid leave or outright fired, as a direct result of the Executive Order. Washington Post contributor John Hudson has reported organization officials brand Trump’s directives on “foreign development assistance” a “shock and awe approach,” which has left them reeling, uncertain of their futures. One nameless USAID apparatchik told him, “they even removed all the pictures in our offices of aid programs,” as accompanying photographs attested.

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The Moral Depravity of U.S. Sanctions and Embargoes

In the December 29, 2024, issue of the conservative Wall Street Journal, the paper’s longtime columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady, who also serves on the Journal’s editorial board, wrote an article harshly criticizing the dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela. Quoting a State Department statement issued in January 2021, she points out that the Cuban communist regime is a murderous supporter of terrorism that lets the Cuban people “go hungry, homeless, and without medicine.”

O’Grady also also points out that Cuba is a supporter of the dictatorial regime of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who has ruthlessly tyrannized the Venezuelan people, not only politically but also economically with the same type of socialist economic system that exists in Cuba. Harkening back to the popular post-9/11 U.S. “war on terrorism,” which replaced the previously popular “war on communism,” she points out that Venezuela is as big a supporter of terrorism as Cuba is.

O’Grady concludes her essay with the following statement: “Under Cuban political tutelage, eight million Venezuelans have fled the country, there are 1,900 political prisoners, and the five patriots inside the [Argentine] embassy are being starved to death. This is state-sponsored terrorism by any other name.”

Yesterday, the Journal published an editorial calling on the U.S. government to come to the support of the Venezuelan people. The editorial points out that “only Venezuelans can reclaim their democracy” but then adds this concluding interventionist line: “But a U.S. policy that restores sanctions on Venezuelan oil exports and puts maximum pressure on the regime would at least show which side America is on.”

Those two articles demonstrate much of what is wrong with the U.S. government’s foreign policy of interventionism, which, needless to say, is favored not only by  right-wingers but also by left-wingers.

Consider Cuba. For more than 60 years, the U.S. government has maintained a harsh system of sanctions against the people of that nation. We call it an “economic embargo” but that’s just another fancy word for the modern-day term of “sanctions.”

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How the West Destroyed Syria

RS: Why do you think the Syrian military and government collapsed so rapidly?

Peter Ford: Everybody was surprised but with hindsight, we shouldn’t have been. Over more than a decade, the Syrian army had been hollowed out by the extremely dire economic situation in Syria, mainly caused by western sanctions. Syria only had a few hours of electricity a day, no money to buy weapons and no ability to use the international banking system to buy anything whatsoever. It’s no surprise that the Army was run down. With hindsight, you might say the surprise is that the Syrian government and Army were successful in driving back the Islamists. The Syrian Army forced them into the redoubt of Idlib four or five years ago. But after that point, the Syrian army deteriorated, became less battle ready on the technical level and also morale.

Syrian soldiers are mainly conscripts and they suffer as much as any ordinary Syrian from the really dreadful economic situation in Syria. I hesitate to admit it, but the Western sanctions were extremely effectively in doing what they were designed to do: to bring the Syrian economy down to its knees. So we have to say, and I say this with deep regret,  the sanctions worked. The sanctions did exactly what they were designed to do to make the Syrian people suffer, and thereby to bring about discontent with what they call the regime.

Ordinary Syrians didn’t understand the complexities of geopolitics, and they blamed the Syrian government for everything: not having electricity, not having food, not having gas, oil, high inflation. Everything that came from being cut off from the world economy and not having supporters with bottomless pockets.

Syria was being attacked and occupied by major military powers (Turkey, USA, Israel). Plus thousands of foreign jihadis. The Syrian army was so demoralized that they really were a paper tiger by the end of the day.

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Lessons from Iraq, Libya, and Syria: Resistance, Betrayal, and Collapse

The tumultuous collapses of Iraq, Libya and Syria offer stark parallels and contrasts, shedding light on the complex interplay of foreign intervention, internal strife and the fragile dynamics of power in the Middle East.

At the heart of anti-colonialism lie two principles which, at first glance, seem to stand in direct opposition. The first calls for unwavering support of the global struggle for resistance and liberation against white supremacy and colonialism, a battle fought across borders and systems of oppression. The second prioritizes empowering the poorest workers and peasants, ensuring that wealth is redistributed to uplift those most marginalized.

Achieving both of these core principles is rare and remarkable. State-building efforts, including attempts at socialist state formation, are constantly pressured to compromise with colonial powers and transform into comprador states that serve external capitalist interests. Most succumb to this pressure swiftly. The coup against Ben Bella in Algeria and the betrayal of Lumumba by Kabila are just two of many examples.

Despite their flaws and criticisms, Saddam’s Baathist Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libyan Jamahiriya managed to uphold both principles. In stark contrast, Syria failed on both fronts, resulting in the hollowed-out, degenerated state under Assad. This stands in sharp contrast to Iraq in 2003 and Libya in 2011, both of which resisted colonial destruction at the time. A telling indication of Syria’s failure is the complete lack of popular will to fight for the decrepit Baath regime once it falls.

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