Don't the mainstream media ever get tired of lying?

 

The mainstream media appear to be desperately searching for anything even remotely negative to say about the Trump administration.  The latest is food distribution under USAID.  From MSN:

In a warehouse in the East African port of Djibouti, USAID estimates there’s roughly 40,000 metric tons of food aid procured from American farmers worth about $40 million at risk of spoiling in the heat and humidity.

There’s also $10 million of emergency food supplies at risk in a South African warehouse and another $39 million of aid waiting for shipment from Houston, Texas, according to a report this week from the beleaguered agency’s inspector general’s office. The White House fired the agency’s inspector general after the report came out.

All told, the watchdog estimated there’s nearly $500 million of emergency food assistance paid for by US taxpayers at risk of being ruined by the Trump administration’s disruptive freeze of all US foreign aid and Elon Musk’s chaotic attempt to shut down the United States Agency for International Development, which has seen thousands of staff fired or put on leave and even its name stripped off its Washington headquarters.  

There's more at the link.

And from CBS:

Almost $500 million in food aid is at risk of spoilage as it sits in ports, ships and warehouses after funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was paused by the Trump administration, according to a Feb. 10 report from a government watchdog. 

The report from USAID's inspector general highlighted the risks of "safeguarding and distribution" of $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid after the Trump administration ordered almost all staff to be placed on leave and ordered a review of U.S. foreign assistance programs. 

USAID, which provides humanitarian aid to more than 100 countries, buys food directly from U.S. farmers and manufacturers, which have typically provided about 40% of international food assistance, according to a 2021 report from the Congressional Research Service. With USAID funding paused, there is concern among U.S. farmers about the market for some of their products, including Kansas sorghum producers, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. 

Again, more at the link.

Clearly, the mainstream media has its marching orders from Propaganda Central, and they're all scurrying to paint the most negative possible picture of the results of USAID's decline and fall.  Well, I've worked in the Third World for decades.  I've seen USAID food distributed in several countries.  I've helped organize, and led, aid convoys into disrupted and/or disaster areas.  I know whereof I speak - and I can tell you that those reports are mostly bull****.

First off, the food that USAID distributes (or should that be "distributed"?) isn't broccoli and bananas, guaranteed to go bad within days.  It's dry grains such as rice, wheat, sorghum, and so on.  It's flour (in large quantities) from wheat, maize and other grains.  It's beans of any number of varieties.  The stuff lasts for months, if not years, and is selected with that as a primary requirement.  Since destinations for that aid seldom have luxuries such as refrigeration or air-conditioning, you send them food that can remain edible and healthy under such conditions.

Secondly, the "risks" of "safeguarding and distribution" are real, whether or not USAID is involved.  Have you seen photographs of tents made from or supplied by USAID, in use by terrorist movements such as Hamas, the Taliban and others?  Of course you have.  Have you seen TV footage of food for sale in African village markets, including sacks filled with USAID-supplied grain?  Yep, that too.  All those aid products were stolen by those selling and/or using them.  They don't pay for them.  They don't even ask for them.  They simply raid the warehouses where they're stored and take what they want, or hijack entire convoys loaded with aid products.

(Theft wasn't a major problem with those aid convoys I organized and led.  That's because I kept a "slush fund" of some of the aid money, and used it to hire a local gang of thugs.  I would promise the gangster - sorry, he preferred to be called a "warlord" - that if he and his AK-47-festooned goons would guard our trucks and their cargoes against theft by others, I'd pay him a fairly lavish sum (by local standards) upon our safe return to what passed for civilization in that part of the world.  He was usually happy to agree.  A few who agreed, then tried to rob me, learned the hard way that I was prepared for that and would deal with it in a rather... ah, robust fashion.  After word spread among their peers, the survivors proved rather more cooperative.  Why aid organizations couldn't or wouldn't do the same thing, I have no idea - qualms of conscience, perhaps?  To me, the choice was simple.  If you wanted the aid to get where it was needed, you used the tools at your disposal.  If you didn't use them, your aid didn't get to where it was needed.  Q.E.D., end of story, end of problem.)

As for US farmers suffering a loss if the USAID market is closed to them, I doubt very much that will be a problem.  USAID's food budget is a tiny fraction of what countries all over the world pay to import food from the USA.  That demand will continue.  US food aid will also continue, and that food will continue to be bought from US farmers.  It just won't have "USAID" on the sacks containing it - there'll be another name or departmental logo.  The bureaucrats will doubtless come up with something catchy and friendly-sounding to accommodate international sensitivities.  Perhaps we could start a rumor that the USA is putting saltpeter or copper sulphate into its food aid, to curb rampant Third World libidos?  That should reduce the demand for our farm products quite substantially . . .

So I don't think we need to worry about USAID food "rotting" in warehouses, and the problem of having it stolen will be no worse than if USAID was actually supervising it as usual.  It got stolen then, and that will continue, because USAID and its local partners have seldom, if ever, done anything effective to protect it from theft.

Ignore the bleats of outraged sensitivities from the mainstream media.  They're all parroting the same script, and none of them know what they're talking about.  The truth is not in them.

Peter