Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

WikiLeaks: Special Forces Unconventional Warfare document exposes USAID as tool of economic leverage

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 03.02.2025

Amid the buzz over DOGE chief Elon Musk’s words about USAID being “a criminal organization,” the world’s top whistleblowing website has dug up direct evidence to confirm as much.

While USAID promotes itself as an agency promoting “democratic values abroad” and advancing “a free, peaceful, and prosperous world,” a leaked US Army manual touts it as one means of applying “economic power” to “persuade adversaries, allies and surrogates to modify their behavior.”

USAID’s “placement abroad and its mission to engage human groups provide one channel for leveraging economic incentives” in support of US unconventional warfare efforts, the 2008 Special Forces Unconventional Warfare document states.

“Direct application of USAID grants to specific human groups can alter negative behaviors or cement positive affirmations,” it adds.

The Spec Ops doc also touts USAID’s “Conflict Assessment Framework” as an effective tool for informing “programmatic, operational- and tactical-level design and planning” for military use.

Elon Musk put USAID on the chopping block amid reports that Department of Government Efficiency agents were physically blocked from accessing USAID’s secure systems as part of DOGE’s accounting of federal programs and spending.

Speaking to press on Sunday, President Donald Trump said USAID “has been run by a bunch of radical lunatics,” and promised to “make a decision” on the agency’s future after “getting them out.”

On Monday, Musk said Trump had “agreed we should shut [USAID] down.”

February 3, 2025 Posted by | Corruption | , | Leave a comment

Even with Western aid drying up, corruption continues to flourish in Ukraine

By Ahmed Adel | February 3, 2025

The deep-rooted corruption in Ukraine began to surface after it became clear that the Kiev regime was losing the war. Although the West used a corrupt Ukraine to attack and weaken Russia, the Westerners themselves now look for an alibi for the defeat and to distance themselves from their proxy after ignoring the total corruption of the Kiev regime due to the ambitions of certain leaders to inflict as much damage as possible on Russia.

Cracks have begun to appear in the relations between the allies due to corruption, and Ukraine accuses its Western partners of using corruption accusations as an excuse not to admit the country to NATO and the EU. Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe today, but the West continued to support Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky uncritically until Donald Trump raised the issue due to then-US President Joe Biden sending American taxpayers’ money to Ukraine.

It was then discovered that the Kiev regime was giving part of that money to Hunter Biden, the son of Joe Biden. Hunter Biden, in turn, sent that money to his father, who, at the end of his term, issued a decree on Hunter’s preventive pardon.

Trump is now conducting a “special financial operation,” which will include both the Pentagon and Ukraine, to determine where the money went. For this reason, Trump has suspended the US aid program to Ukraine for 90 days, suggesting that there is evidence of financial mismanagement and theft of US taxpayer money.

Biden’s last decrees also indicate corruption related to Ukraine. Besides Hunter, Joe Biden issued preventive pardons for his brothers and their wives, as well as for his sister and her husband. It was not clear why and for what reason. However, there was no information about the existence of any criminal offenses and so on.

In Kiev, the main culprit behind these corruption schemes is Zelensky, who officially has a monthly salary of 28,000 hryvnias, about $664. Undoubtedly, he has other income because he bought a house for his parents and in-laws, a yacht, and more. According to media reports, Zelensky purchased a villa in Italy and acquired an estate in Britain—the former residence of King Charles and Princess Diana—while Zelensky’s wife has an apartment in London. In addition, the couple owns real estate in Cyprus and Miami. This, according to some sources, is not a complete list.

An Egyptian journalist who wrote about the purchase of the Italian villa in the name of Zelensky’s mother-in-law, worth almost $5 million, was found dead under unclear circumstances. As for the castle in the UK, these allegations are made by Ukrainian sources and still need to be verified. However, there is nothing secret that does not become public, and the Trump administration is certainly monitoring the movement of money.

Friends, godfathers, and relatives of Ukrainian officials are also getting rich quickly because property is being purchased in their names. Corruption in Ukraine is flourishing at all levels, and Ukrainian officials are issuing directives to journalists not to write about it until the war is over because it is bad for the country, as it may be left without Western aid. Sooner or later, everything will come to light.

The Trump administration will likely have all the information and initiate criminal proceedings by now. It is no coincidence that Zelensky is now saying that Ukraine does not have the strength to capture the lost territories. This statement seems to indicate a radical change in Kiev’s position and a renunciation of unrealistic goals to “return to the 1991 borders.” The reason for this is that Western aid is drying up.

Trump’s words that Biden and Zelensky started the war and that if he had been president, there would have been no war, draw attention to the fact that since January 20, the new president’s inauguration, there have been no attacks on Russia with American HIMARS and ATACMS missiles. The assumption is that Kiev received such an order from Trump, who replaced and fired people who dealt with Ukrainian issues in the State Department and the Pentagon.

Zelensky was a puppet managed by the West and was under the control of British intelligence. This is evidenced by the fact that in the spring of 2022, Zelensky annulled the Istanbul Peace Accords on the directive of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, even though he had a chance to stop the war that would have prevented Ukraine from losing more territory and preserved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. However, he instead decided to continue to fight on the promise that billions of dollars would flow endlessly, a prospect that Zelensky could not resist as an opportunity to further enrich himself and those closest to him.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

February 3, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Here’s How Much Senate’s Loudest RFK Jr Critics Have Been Paid by Big Pharma

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.02.2025

The fiery viral exchange between RFK Jr and Senator Bernie Sanders on Big Pharma money in politics has cast a new light on the Trump HHS pick’s uphill confirmation battle.

Among senators grilling Kennedy hardest in this week’s grueling confirmation hearings, here’s who’s gotten the most pharma money via PAC contributions and employee donations between 1990-2024, per calculations by OpenSecrets:

  • Bernie Sanders: $1.9 mln
  • Ralph Warnock: $1.76 mln
  • Patty Murray: $1.6 mln
  • Chuck Schumer: $1.55 mln
  • Elizabeth Warren: $1.2 mln. Ironic that she’s recently accused Kennedy of “profiting from anti-vaccine conspiracies.”
  • Ron Wyden: $1.2 mln
  • Bill Cassidy: $1.2 mln
  • Mark Warner: $654,000
  • Maggie Hassan: $467,000
  • Catherine Cortez Masto: $537,000

Bipartisan Consensus

And it’s not just Democrats. OpenSecrets records, which have 307 names on file, show former GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell got $2 mln, Mitt Romney $3.3 mln, Richard Burr $1.6 mln, the late John McCain $1.4 mln, Bill Cassidy $1.2 mln, and Roy Blunt, John Cornyn and Tim Scott $1.1 mln each over the past three-and-a-half decades.

A 2021 STAT study found that over two-thirds of Congress got a pharma check in 2020, with Pfizer alone contributing to 228 federal campaigns and over 1,000 state races. By last August alone, Big Pharma’s 2024 election PAC war chests hit $37 mln, per BioSpace.

OpenSecrets partial list of top Big Pharma donations to current and former US senators.
© Photo : OpenSecrets

Besides lobbying, lawmakers have taken advantage of their jobs to get rich off pharma-related insider trading, with a 2021 Business Insider report finding that 75 made timely investments into the federal Covid response.

Then there’s the combined payouts of healthcare industry, which includes pharma but also insurance, medical device suppliers, etc.

By these accounts, Sanders alone got $23+ mln since 1990, Warnock $14.7 mln, Warren $10.4 mln, Wyden $6.7 mln, Tim Kaine $3.3 mln, Ed Markey $2.3 mln, Patty Murray $5.8 mln, Tammy Baldwin $4.9 mln, etc.

Chart compiled by @MidwesternDoc based on OpenSecrets data on healthcare industry contributions to US lawmakers.
© Photo : X / @MidwesternDoc / OpenSecrets

Media Onboard Too

Major outlets aren’t running anti-RFK hit pieces for free. Dr. Leana Wen, author of a recent WaPo piece trashing Kennedy, received over $1.1 mln from Big Pharma over her career.

In 2021, MintPress News calculated that active Big Pharma cheerleader Bill Gates has given nearly $320 mln to media over the years to ensure favorable coverage of himself and the initiatives he’s pushing, including as it relates to the pharmaceutical industry.

February 2, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | 1 Comment

Unaddressed Issues after WHO Withdrawal

By David Bell | Brownstone Institute | January 29, 2025

On Day One of his new administration, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order notifying an intent to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO). This has drawn celebration from some, dismay from others, and probably disinterest from the vast majority of the population more concerned with feeding families and paying off debt. The executive order also leaves much unaddressed, namely the substantive issues that have changed the WHO and international public health over the past decade.

Change is certainly needed, and it is good that the WHO’s largest direct funder is expressing real concern. The reactions to the notice of withdrawal also demonstrate the vast gulf between reality and the positions of those on both sides of the WHO debate.

The new administration is raising an opportunity for rational debate. If this can be grasped, there is still a chance that the WHO, or an organization more fit for purpose, could provide broad benefit to the world’s peoples. But the problems underlying the international public health agenda must first be acknowledged for this to become possible.

What Actually Is the WHO? What Does It Do?

Despite being the health arm of the United Nations (UN), the WHO is a self-governing body under the 194 countries of the World Health Assembly (WHA). Its 34-member executive board is elected from the WHA. The WHA also elects the Director-General (DG), based on one country – one vote. Its 1946 constitution restricts its governance to States (rather than private individuals and corporations), so in this way, it is unique among the major international health agencies. While private individuals and corporations can buy influence, they can be completely excluded should the WHA so wish.

With 8,000 staff, the WHO is split into six Regions and a Head Office in Geneva, Switzerland. The Regional Office of the Americas, also called the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), is based in Washington, DC, and preceded the WHO, having been established in 1902 as the International Sanitary Bureau. Like other Regional Offices, PAHO has its own Regional Assembly, obviously dominated by the US, and is largely self-governing under the wider WHO and UN system.

The WHO is funded by countries and non-State entities. While countries are required to provide ‘assessed’ or core funding, most of the budget is derived from voluntary funding provided by countries and private or corporate donors. Nearly all voluntary funding is ‘specified,’ comprising 75% of the total budget. Under specified funding, the WHO must do the funders’ bidding. Most of its activities are therefore specified by its funders, not the WHO itself, with a quarter of this being private people and corporations with strong Pharma interests.

Therefore the WHO, while governed by countries, has effectively become a tool of others – both State and non-State interests. The US is the largest direct funder (~15%), but the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is a close second (14%), and the partly Gates-funded Gavi public-private partnership (PPP) is third. Thus, Mr. Gates arguably has the largest influence in terms of specifying the WHO’s actual activities. The European Union and World Bank are also major funders, as is Germany and the United Kingdom (i.e. the remaining large Western Pharma countries).

In response to its funders, the WHO has shifted focus to areas where large Pharma profits can be accrued. Pharma must insist on this as it has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize return on investment for its shareholders by using its WHO connections to sell more product. The obvious way to make lots of money in Pharma is by spreading fear of vaccine-preventable diseases, and then making vaccines and selling them free from liability to as large a market as possible. This was highly effective during the Covid-19 response, and the WHO is now sponsored by these interests to implement the surveil-lockdown-mass vaccinate paradigm behind the recent amendments to the International Health Regulations and the draft pandemic agreement.

While a shamefully willing tool, the WHO is not driving this. The US started the IHR amendment process and heavily backed it until the recent change of administration. The new administration, while signaling an intent to withdraw from the WHO, has not signaled a withdrawal from the pandemic industrial complex the US helped develop.

Critical to understanding the US withdrawal is the fact that the Covid-19 outbreak, and the response, would have looked almost identical if the WHO did not exist. The WHO was not involved in the gain-of-function research, in vaccine development, or in vaccine mandates. It abrogated its own ethical principles and prior recommendations in pushing lockdowns and mass vaccination, and did huge harm in the process. However, it was countries that funded and conducted the virus modification that likely spawned Covid-19. It was countries, in concert with Pharma, that mandated lockdowns on their people and pushed vaccination most heavily (the WHO never recommended the Covid-19 vaccines for children).

This is not a defense of the WHO – the organization was both incompetent, dishonest, and negligent during Covid-19. They were a public health disgrace. They have continued to deliberately mislead countries regarding future pandemic risk, and inflated return-on-investment claims, in order to sell the policies that benefit their sponsors. But remove the WHO, and the World Bank (the main funder of the pandemic agenda), the PPPs looking to sell pandemic vaccines (Gavi and CEPI), the Gates Foundation, Germany, the UK, and EU, the US health ‘swamp’ itself, and Pharma with its compliance media, will still exist. They have other options to bring a veneer of legitimacy to their pillaging through public health.

The US Notice of Withdrawal

As President Trump’s 20th January order of withdrawal notes, it repeats an executive order from mid-2020 that was subsequently revoked by President Biden. In theory, it takes at least 12 months for a withdrawal to take effect, based on the Joint Resolution of Congress in 1948 through which the US joined WHO, subsequently agreed by the WHA. However, as the new executive order is intended to revoke the Biden revocation, the remaining time to run is unclear. The waiting period could also be shortened by a further Act of Congress.

The 2025 notice of withdrawal is interesting, as the reasons given for withdrawal are relatively benign. There are four:

  1. Mishandling of the Covid-19 outbreak and other (undefined) global health crises. The “mishandling” is undefined, but may include WHO support for China in obscuring Covid-19 origins as highlighted in the recent Covid-19 House of Representatives sub-committee report. There are few obvious candidates for other truly global health crises that the WHO mishandled, except perhaps the 2009 Swine flu outbreak, unless the executive order refers to any international (global) public health issue (in which case there are many).
  2. Failure to adopt urgently needed reforms. These are undefined. Of concern, the only reforms the US has been pushing on the WHO in the past few years (pre-Trump administration) were intended to increase the authority of the WHO over sovereign States and the authority of its work. The recent Republican-dominated House subcommittee report recommended the same.
  3. Inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states. This is presumably aimed at China, but is also concerning, as the WHO is subject to its Member States through the WHA. It would be strange if the US was hoping to free the WHO from such constraints. There is no mention of private sector involvement, now about 25% of WHO funding, which many would claim is the core reason for the corruption and deterioration of the WHO’s work.
  4. Unfairly onerous payments by the US. The US provides 22% of the WHO’s assessed (core funding) but this is only a fraction of US payments. The vast majority of US payments have been entirely voluntary, and the US could presumably choose to stop these at any time, removing most of its funding but not its voting rights. With China listed by the WHO as paying less than Somalia and Nigeria in the current 2024-25 biennium (per mid-January 2025), the US has a reasonable gripe here, but a simple one to fix.

Missing from the executive order is any reference to the other promoters of the pandemic or emergency agenda. The World Bank’s Pandemic Fund is untouched by this executive order, as are the PPPs. CEPI (vaccines for pandemics) and Gavi (vaccines in general) provide private industry and investors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with direct decision-making roles they cannot ensure through the WHO.

The executive order requires the Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy to “…review, rescind, and replace the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy.” It is hoped that this signals a recognition of the lack of an evidence base and financial rigor around the current policy. Indeed, the policy promoted by the US, the WHO, the World Bank, and PPPs is irrelevant, by design, to a laboratory-released pathogen such as that which probably caused Covid-19. The actual mortality from natural outbreaks that it is designed for has been declining for over a century.

Implications of Withdrawal

A full withdrawal of the US from the WHO will presumably reduce US influence within the organization, enhancing that of the EU, China, and the private sector. As it ignores the World Bank and the PPPs, it will not greatly affect the pandemic agenda’s momentum. Covid-19 would still have happened had the US been out of the WHO before 2020, and modRNA mass vaccination would still have been driven by countries and Pharma with the help of a compliant media. The WHO acted as a propagandist and helped waste billions, but never advocated for vaccine mandates or mass vaccination of children. Though it was appalling, the driving forces behind the wealth concentration and human rights abuses of the Covid-19 era clearly originated elsewhere

If the US withdraws its 15% of the WHO budget – about $600 million per year – others (e.g. EU, Gavi, Gates Foundation) could fill the gap. The executive order mentions withdrawing US contractors, but these are few. Nearly all WHO staff are directly employed, not seconded by governments. The main effect will be to reduce coordination with agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The US will have a continuing need to use WHO services, such as for prequalification (regulation) of hundreds of millions of dollars of commodities bought and distributed by USAID and related programs but not regulated through the FDA. This is not a problem – the WHO lists are public – but the US would simply continue to use WHO services without paying for or influencing them.

The withdrawal notice also mentions cessation of US involvement in negotiating the amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the Pandemic Agreement. The IHR negotiations concluded 8 months ago, and the US has 2 months to signal rejection. The IHR is separate from WHO membership. The pandemic agreement is subject to wide disagreement between countries, and it is not clear whether it will go forward. However, provisions in the FY23 US National Defense Authorization Act (pages 950 to 961) are already stronger than the US would be signing up to with these WHO agreements.

The history of US withdrawals from UN institutions is also one of subsequent re-entry after a change in administration. Leaving the WHO without influence will presumably make it even less like what the Trump administration would like, should history repeat itself and the next administration rejoin.

The hope is that the US withdrawal will force major reform within the WHO – one of the key reasons provided in the withdrawal notice. However, there is no hint in the executive order of the desired direction of change, or whether the US will adopt a more rational policy. If such an intent were made clear, other countries would follow and the WHO itself may actually reboot. However, withdrawing without addressing these fallacies underlying the pandemic agenda entrenches the vested interests who profited through Covid-19 and clearly aim to continue doing so.

Being Real about Reality

The enthusiasm for the WHO withdrawal seems widely to have forgotten two things:

  1. The pandemic agenda and the Covid-19 response that exemplified it is not primarily a WHO program. (WHO said essentially the opposite in 2019).
  2. The actual pandemic industrial complex of surveil-lockdown-mass vaccinate is already essentially in place and does not need the WHO for it to continue.

The WHO Bio-Hub in Germany is largely a German government and Pharma agency with a WHO stamp. The World Bank pandemic fund is the main funding current source for pandemic surveillance, the 100-day vaccine program (CEPI) is directly funded by hapless taxpayers, and the Medical Countermeasures Platform is a partnership with countries, Pharma, the G20, and others. These would probably continue irrespective of the WHO’s existence. The pandemic industrial complex made hundreds of billions of dollars through Covid-19 and has the capacity and incentive to continue.

The complexity of all this is being addressed on social media by statements such as “The WHO is rotten to the core,” “The WHO is unreformable,” or even “Pure evil” – all unhelpful labels for a complex organization of 8,000 staff, 6 fairly independent Regional offices, and dozens of country offices. The WHO’s work on reducing the distribution of counterfeit drugs saves perhaps hundreds of thousands of people each year, and these people matter. Its standards for tuberculosis and malaria management are followed globally, including by the US. In several countries, its technical expertise saves many lives – people who can be abandoned to cliches or taken seriously.

The organization desperately needs reform, as President Trump notes. Its current leadership, having spent the last few years blatantly misleading and lying to countries about Covid-19 and pandemic risk, seems an unlikely candidate to help. They have played the tune of private interests over the needs of the world’s people. However, the WHO’s structure makes it the only major international health institution that countries alone can actually force to reform. It simply needs sufficient Member States of the WHA to force exclusion of private interests, and to force the WHO back to diseases and programs that actually have a significant bearing on human well-being.

Should such reform prove impossible, then the coalition of countries built around the reform agenda can replace it. The massive bureaucracy that global health has become needs to be seen through the same lens as that in the US. The fantasy built around pandemic risk is not substantively different from many on the domestic agenda that the Trump administration is now targeting. It is similarly erosive of human rights, freedom, and human flourishing. Addressing this is an opportunity we would be foolish to miss.

David Bell, Senior Scholar at Brownstone Institute, is a public health physician and biotech consultant in global health. David is a former medical officer and scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO), Programme Head for malaria and febrile diseases at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, Switzerland, and Director of Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in Bellevue, WA, USA.

February 2, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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

By Kit Klarenberg · The Grayzone · January 31, 2025

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.

While the Trump administration’s purge sent shockwaves through Washington’s international development corps and the Beltway Bandits which feed at its trough, the sudden severing of USAID money has sparked panic overseas. From Latin America to Eastern Europe, the US has pumped billions into NGO’s and media outlets to fuel color revolutions and assorted regime change operations, all in the name of “democracy promotion.”

Now, as the global apparatus of soft American power trumpeted by President George H.W. Bush as “a thousand points of light” goes dark, supposedly independent media outfits from Ukraine to Nicaragua are fretting about their future and panhandling for donations on their websites.

US-backed media and opposition face extinction in Ukraine

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has pumped billions into Ukraine to create and propel a fervently anti-Russian opposition. As former State Department Assistant Secretary for Eastern European Affairs Victoria Nuland remarked to an oil industry-sponsored meeting in Kiev in 2009, “we’ve invested $5 billion to assist Ukraine” to “build democratic skills and institutions” allowing it to “achieve European independence.”

The US flooded Ukrainian civil society with grants on the eve of the 2014 Maidan coup, birthing a network of pro-Western media outlets almost overnight. Among them was Hromadske, a liberal broadcasting entity which pushed for the overthrow of President Victor Yanukovych and rallied for the subsequent war with pro-Russian separatists in the country’s east – including through the glorification of Nazis who fought the Soviet Red Army during World War II.

With Trump’s executive order cutting off USAID programs, Hromadske has suddenly been severed from its financial tube. So too have the top Ukrainian media outlets which emerged in the wake of the Maidan coup, including Ukrinform, Internews, and a signatory of the Poynter-run International Fact Checking Network called VoxUkraine.

The Ministry of Culture and Strategic Communications and the Service of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, both created to propagandize for war against Russia, are also among USAID funding recipients now starving for cash.

Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky took to X to whine that “critically important programs” wholly dependent on “US support” were now “suspended” as a result of Trump’s executive order. He promised that “certain key initiatives” would “be financed through our internal resources,” while begging for donations from Kiev’s “European partners” to be “intensified.”

Given Ukraine’s near-total economic destruction since its proxy war against Russia erupted in February 2022, and complete reliance on USAID to pay the salaries of state employees, it is uncertain how the country’s “internal resources” can possibly be used to even vaguely offset its sudden deficit. Already, major Ukrainian media outlets are pleading for financial support from their readers just to keep their lights on.

According to Kiev’s foreign-funded Institute of Mass Information, around 90% of the country’s media is “dependent on American grants.”

Contra 2.0 gravy train paused in Nicaragua

Similar bleating has emanated from US-financed organizations in Nicaragua, where since the re-election of popular leftist Sandinista Front in 2006, Washington has pumped tens of millions of dollars into right-wing media outlets and opposition groups.

In tandem, these foreign-funded fifth columnists routinely disseminate disinformation, while inciting violence against the government and its supporters, and influencing Western media reporting on the country.

As The Grayzone reported, a USAID-funded Nicaraguan opposition outlet called 100% Noticias led a campaign of violent incitement throughout 2018, when a failed US-backed coup attempt left hundreds dead in the country. While the outlet repeatedly featured calls for the murder of President Daniel Ortega, its director, Miguel Mora, told The Grayone’s Max Blumenthal he wished for a US military intervention of the country to topple the elected government. When the Nicaraguan government finally shuttered the station and prosecuted Mora, Washington responded with accusations of repression and threats of heavy sanctions.

On January 21, an anti-Sandinista “news” operations called Nicaragua Investiga warned that Trump’s order “threatens to deal a severe blow” to the country and its anti-Ortega crusade, “which depends heavily on the financial and technical support provided by agencies” such as USAID. This backing, the outlet declared, was a “fundamental pillar” in the Nicaraguan right-wing’s efforts to undermine and depose the anti-imperialist President.

“Civil society organisations that rely on this assistance would be forced to reduce or cease their activities,” Nicaragua Investiga warned. The outlet further lamented that “uncertainty reigns over how and when assistance will be restored, and whether organizations critical of Daniel Ortega’s regime that still survive outside the country will be able to maintain their operations.”

Not coincidentally, Nicaragua Investiga was among the local outlets which largely depended on US government grants for their existence.

Has the US balked at balkanizing the Balkans?

Across the West Balkans, USAID, self-avowed CIA front the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and the panoply of NGOs and media outlets have infiltrated every conceivable sphere of public life. Following the 1992 – 1995 civil war, Bosnia and Herzegovina was methodically transformed into a de facto EU and US colony, with all basic functions of the state hijacked by foreign interests.

Some concern about the imperial project found its way into mainstream media at the time. The New York Times warned in 1998 that US domination of Bosnia “raised troubling questions about how the state will work without continued infusions of outside aid and direct international supervision.” A senior foreign government advisor angsted over Washington’s lack of exit strategy in the country, or any plan to end “Bosnia’s culture of dependency.” Today, at least 25,600 Western-funded NGOs are active in Sarajevo.

The pause in “foreign development assistance” has placed countless jobs and beneficiary organizations at risk of permanent erasure across the Balkans. On January 30, Balkan Insight – an outlet exposed by The Grayzone as a tentacle of British intelligence – published an illuminating investigation into how the aid pause “has immediately affected a range of organisations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.”

From 2020 until the end of 2024, Washington has funnelled a staggering $1.7 billion into the West Balkans, “supporting civil society organisations and state institutions and projects ranging from human rights and media to energy efficiency,” with next to no demonstrable social benefit. Now, “all projects have been halted… until the evaluation period is over.” Expenses up until January 27 will be covered, “while everything after that has to be stopped.” Already, layoffs and huge pay cuts have been enacted at recipient entities.

Nameless NGO workers consulted by Balkan Insight fretted that the US financing freeze would not be temporary. One source speculated the Executive Order could be “just a soft way of cutting these funds permanently.” The outlet noted Washington “has supported thousands of activities” in the region, and “the precise number of affected projects” remains “unknown”. When reporters contacted local USAID offices seeking clarity on the cuts, they were redirected in every instance to the agency’s Washington headquarters.

USAID base camp “responded by sending a link to its press release” on the funding pause. “President Trump stated clearly that the US is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people,” it bluntly declared. “Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative.” Evidently, the new administration is not remotely concerned that entire sectors of local economies in the Balkans have been effectively shuttered.

Even in Albania – a doggedly pro-US country with an influential DC lobby – 30 Washington-subsidized projects have been suspended, including bankrolling of “courts, prosecutor’s offices and the ministries of Defence, Education and Sports, and Finance.” In Macedonia – where “most” US funding is distributed via USAID and NED – $72 million allocated to 22 projects is “now on hold.” Six wider regional USAID-backed initiatives in the Balkans, which also covers Macedonia, “worth some $140 million”, are likewise mothballed. In local terms, these sums are monumental.

Georgia not on the Trump admin’s mind

The Republic of Georgia has been the site of a series of color revolution efforts since the start of 2023, all in response to the government’s successful push to compel the more than 25,000 foreign-financed organizations in the country to disclose their funding sources. Western-backed NGOs and activist groups have been at the forefront of all these attempted putsches. Unsurprisingly, this shadow army of previously US-funded foot soldiers are furious about the Trump administration’s “foreign development assistance” cutoff.

By contrast, the Georgian government appears delighted. Parliamentary leader Mamuka Mdinaradze has even suggested the highly controversial law on foreign funding transparency “might not be needed at all anymore” after Trump’s executive order. Indeed, with untold foreign-sponsored chaos agents suddenly out of money, the color revolution coast is now clear in Tbilisi.

On January 30, local English language publication Georgia Today published a leader mourning that, “as the future of their funding hangs in the balance, aid organizations are already laying off or furloughing staff,” and “some programs” in Tbilisi “may struggle to restart after this temporary shutdown, with many potentially disappearing permanently.” It went on to note USAID financing “has been a cornerstone of the country’s development since 1992, with over $1.9 billion in assistance provided to date.”

Prior to the funding pause, USAID alone was “investing in 39 programs across the country, with a total value of $373 million and an annual budget exceeding $70 million.” These efforts overwhelmingly focused “on promoting economic reforms” and “fostering private sector investment,” which is to say facilitating foreign financial rape and pillage of Georgia.

While domestic critics of Trump’s Executive Order have lambasted Washington’s resultant loss of expansive “soft power” influence in the Global South, such retreat can only be to the enormous benefit of target countries. As a LeftEast essay noted, foreign-funded NGOs have for decades “eroded Georgian citizens’ agency and the country’s sovereignty and democracy.” Its authors explained, “Activists in Georgia know all too well what is expected of them and which behaviors are punished and rewarded: being critical of the government on Facebook will net you more grants than being out in the community helping people… Donors even monitor activists’ social media profiles, and there can be consequences for posting the wrong things.”

However, the relief could be premature for populations that have suffered decades of US “foreign development assistance,” and the attendant coups and unrest it has paid for. The “pause” on US aid may indeed be a temporary measure, or, spending on soft power could be redirected to harder options with even more grave repercussions across the world.

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

This One Question at RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hearing Is Everything Wrong with Our Congress

Truthstream Media | January 30, 2025

Our First Film: TheMindsofMen.net

Our First Series: Vimeo.com/ondemand/trustgame

Site: TruthstreamMedia.com

X: @TruthstreamNews

Backup Ch: Vimeo.com/truthstreammedia

DONATE: http://bit.ly/2aTBeeF

Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bbxcWX

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science, Video | | 1 Comment

Why is the top US spy alliance afraid of Trump?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 01.02.2025

America’s Five Eyes partners – Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – fear that US President Donald Trump’s deep state crackdown and spy apparatus overhaul could destabilize their intelligence network, reports The Wall Street Journal.

What’s driving their concerns?

Free Riders

  • Trump may see Five Eyes as a bloated racket exploiting US resources, per the WSJ. The US spends nearly $100 billion on intelligence – 10 times more than the other four combined.

Russia Collusion Hoax

  • Five Eyes were entangled in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, largely pushed by US intelligence.
  • The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, later debunked, was triggered by an Australian tip in 2016.
  • Britain’s GCHQ may have wiretapped Trump during his 2016 campaign, as the White House suggested in 2017.
  • Trump hasn’t directly targeted Five Eyes lately, but their unease suggests they have plenty to hide.

What Triggered the Panic?

  • The “world’s most powerful spy alliance” sounded the alarm as Trump’s intelligence picks, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, near confirmation in Congress.
  • Gabbard, nominated for director of National Intelligence, vowed to fight weaponized intelligence, citing Iraq War lies and the Russia collusion hoax.
  • Patel, set to lead the FBI, pledged to curb overseas operations and increase transparency.

February 1, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine wants EU to replace lost US aid

RT | January 30, 2025

Ukrainian lawmakers have appealed to non-US donors to fund local media outlets and NGOs following the suspension of Washington’s foreign assistance programs that has reportedly drastically impacted the sector.

Last week, President Donald Trump halted cash flows from the US and ordered a 90-day review of aid schemes. Many affected programs were run by USAID, Washington’s soft power agency that distributes billions of dollars each year for projects that promote US interests around the world, under the premise of humanitarian development. It spent over $60 billion in 2023 alone.

Ukrainian recipients of American grants were hit “worse than it may seem,” a statement by the parliamentary committee on humanitarian affairs said on Wednesday. Lawmakers anticipate that it will take up to six months for US funding to fully resume, and have urged EU donors to step in.

“Given the constraints on public funding, grants remain virtually the only way for cultural and media projects to function,” the statement said.

Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of a Kiev-based media research non-profit, warned that 90% of news outlets in Ukraine rely heavily on foreign grants. With USAID operations frozen, many of them are now soliciting emergency donations.

The Ukrainian MPs described foreign assistance as “an important part of our path to democratic development and sustainability”. They empathized that USAID was funding projects for children, with thousands of minors attending schools that depend on American taxpayer dollars.

According to media reports, senior officials in the Department of State have lobbied Secretary Marco Rubio to make exemptions for their preferred aid programs, arguing that they are essential for US interests. Meanwhile, at least 60 senior USAID officials reportedly have been placed on paid administrative leave.

January 30, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 1 Comment

Architect of Russia sanctions sentenced to 11 years in prison

RT | January 29, 2025

Former US Senator Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison on bribery and corruption charges after being found guilty of accepting cash and gold bars and acting as an illegal agent for the Egyptian government.

The New Jersey Democrat was convicted last July and resigned from the Senate a month later rather than face expulsion. He previously chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he was known for championing stringent sanctions on Russia, among other policies.

“The public cannot be led to the belief that you can get away with bribery, fraud, and betrayal,” US District Judge Sidney Stein said on Wednesday. “I don’t know what led you to this,” Stein added. “You’ll have to try to figure that out yourself over time.”

Prosecutors had sought at least 15 years in prison, along with millions of dollars in forfeitures and fines, arguing that such penalties were necessary “to provide just punishment for this extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of public trust.”

Menendez is the first US senator convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government.

“For someone who spent his entire life in public service, every day I’m awake is a punishment,” the former lawmaker told the court.

Menendez began his political career in 1974 when he was elected to the Union City Board of Education. He later served as the city’s mayor from 1986 to 1992, then moved to the state legislature in 1988 and the state senate in 1991. He represented New Jersey’s 13th district in the US House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006, when he was appointed to the Senate.

Menendez stepped down from his position as head of the Senate’s influential Foreign Relations Committee after the initial charges were filed in September 2023, where he had played a key role in drawing up Washington’s sanctions on Moscow even before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.

His attorney, Adam Fee, argued that the former senator’s nearly 50 years of public service should not be overshadowed by his conviction, dismissing the public’s characterization of him as “Gold Bar Bob.” The defense team also requested that Menendez remain out of prison while they appeal his conviction.

January 30, 2025 Posted by | Corruption | | 1 Comment

Ukrainian media in funding crisis after US cash cut

RT | January 29, 2025

Multiple Ukrainian media outlets have issued appeals for emergency cash donations after US President Donald Trump suspended Washington’s foreign aid programs. USAID, the organization that funnels billions of dollars to international causes deemed worthy by Washington has been put on hold, pending reviews, and up to 60 senior staff have reportedly been suspended on full pay.

Nine out of every ten media outlets in Ukraine have been impacted by Washington’s decision, Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of the Institute of Mass Information in Kiev has claimed.

”Unfortunately, almost 90% of Ukrainian media outlets were surviving on grants,” the head of the media-focused NGO told Hromadske Radio. Romanyuk described Trump’s decision as a threat to democracy in Ukraine, claiming that “oligarchs” may seize control of a media landscape “weakened” by the halt in American funding.

Hromadske is among the outlets soliciting private donations in the wake of aid freeze. Established in November 2013, just before the Maidan protests started, Hromadske received its seed funding directly from the US embassy in Kiev and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The broadcaster played a pivotal role in criticizing the government during the violent coup that overthrew a democratically elected president and put Ukraine on course for division and conflict.

In a statement announcing the suspension of some of its projects, Hromadske praised the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as one of the most generous donors of “independent media” and NGOs in Ukraine. The investigative journalism organization Bihus.info also acknowledged that much of its work has been funded by the US.

The campaign for emergency funding also extends beyond traditional news outlets. Detector Media, a self-styled watchdog ‘combating online disinformation,’ has warned that hundreds of organizations are facing shutdown without USAID support, and urged private citizens and business owners to donate.

Irina Vereshchuk, the deputy chief of staff to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, has called the suspension of US non-military assistance “unexpected and unpleasant”. Kiev will hold “consultations with our American partners” to resume the flow of money while implementing measures to “stabilize the situation” in the interim, she promised on Tuesday.

January 29, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

Did Trump Halt Aid to Ukraine?

By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR 21 | January 24, 2025

Yesterday, there were a number of “headlines” in the US media claiming all foreign aid was stopped—except for Israel and Egypt. But the Pentagon weighed in today denying that it affects Ukraine:

“A Pentagon official confirmed that Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid applies only to development programs, not security assistance to Ukraine.” -VOA

When I spoke with Judge Napolitano and Nima today, I had not seen these reports. However, while Trump’s order does not curtail security assistance (i.e., weapons, vehicles and ammunition) already in the pipeline, it does freeze the assistance funds that flow through State Department channels:

The Trump administration has reportedly frozen USAID projects as part of its foreign assistance audit

The Trump administration has frozen projects in Ukraine that were funded through the US Agency for International Development, Reuter reported on Friday, citing a USAID official.

The official told the news agency that USAID officers responsible for projects in Ukraine were told to stop all work. The projects that were frozen reportedly include support for schools and healthcare, including maternal care and the vaccination of children.

So part of the Ukrainian grift machine is shut down for the next three months. That is a start in the right direction.

Even if the US under the Trump administration continues to funnel weapons to Ukraine, this does not solve Ukraine’s fundamental weakness — i.e., the lack of trained soldiers. The New York Times published a bizarre piece of illogical nonsense today under the title, Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia — but It’s Still Losing the War. This is simply a pile of fetid horse manure. I am not even going to waste time deconstructing the lies the permeate this piece of propaganda. Let’s deal with facts:

  1. Russia has at least an 8:1 advantage in artillery shells since 2022.
  2. Russia has air supremacy and is able to drop massive glide bombs on Ukrainian positions, while Ukraine has not comparable capability.
  3. Russia has more drones and has deployed drones guided by fiber optic cable and artificial intelligence. Ukraine has no such capability.
  4. Russia has more tanks and armored personnel carriers.

But we also have hard numbers from Ukrainian sources about a Ukrainian / Russian exchange of dead soldiers. Check out this graphic:

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Russia received the bodies of 49 soldiers and, in turn, delivered the remains of 757 Ukrainian troops. In other words, for every dead Russian soldier there were 15 dead Ukrainians. That data tells you everything you need to know about the true extent of Ukrainian losses and exposes the prevarication of the New York Times reporters.

However, the Times makes one damning admission:

Western intelligence agencies have been reluctant to disclose their internal calculations of Ukrainian casualties for fear of undermining an ally. American officials have previously said that Kyiv withholds this information from even the closest allies.

Yes, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are not reporting the real Ukrainian losses because of politics. Just one more example of the politicization of intelligence. … Full article

January 26, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US suspends aid to Ukraine – Politico

RT | January 24, 2025

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has frozen nearly all new aid grants to Ukraine for 90 days, Politico reported on Friday. The move comes after President Donald Trump ordered a full review of all foreign assistance.

Rubio instructed diplomatic and consular posts to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” Politico said, citing an internal document.

According to Politico, the order “shocked” State Department officials and appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine.

The magazine cited three current and two former officials familiar with the matter as saying Rubio’s guidance means that “no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the US government.”

The BBC, which also reviewed the State Department memo, reported that it appears to “affect everything from development assistance to military aid.”

Although the Pentagon previously told Voice of America that the aid freeze would not affect “security assistance to Ukraine,” Rubio’s memo reportedly only granted exceptions for military aid to Israel and Egypt, without mentioning any other country.

Journalist Ken Klippenstein posted what he said was a copy of Rubio’s guidance, which “pauses all new obligations of funding, pending a review, for foreign assistance programs” funded through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Trump, who took office on Monday, has ordered a 90-day suspension of all “foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”

A USAID official told Reuters that among the programs that were frozen are assistance to schools and healthcare, including emergency maternal care and the vaccination of children.

Since February 2022, USAID has provided $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance, and more than $30 billion in “direct budget support,” according to its website.

The US has provided nearly $66 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, according to the Pentagon.

Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for approving unconditional aid to Ukraine and has vowed to implement cost-cutting measures. He also promised to quickly negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev.

January 25, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »