The recent attention on USAID and explosive revelations on where its spending is really going surely comes as an early Christmas gift for Rand Paul when it comes time for him to prepare his annual Festivus report.
From funding the teaching of Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary gendered language” to sex changes in Guatemala, to LGBT activism in Armenia, Jamaica, Latin America, Uganda, among countless others, the agency behaves more like an activist organization than anything else. There’s also the irony in the revelation that many so-called “Non Governmental Organizations” (NGOs) get most of their funding from the government.
Other hits include funding for Sesame Street in Iraq, drag show workshops for Venezuelan migrants in Ecuador, boosting tourism in Tunisia and Egypt, teaching Africans about climate change, and teaching the people of Kazakhstan about how to fight back against internet trolls.
The list could go on for hundreds of pages — but you get the idea.
Even aid projects that could be viewed as more legitimate are tainted by politics by design, and that’s thanks to George Soros. In 2017 the Heritage Foundation exposed how Soros had leveraged his influence to attach strings to humanitarian aid disbursed by USAID, all of which require recipients to sign on to a far-left political agenda — especially in countries that don’t want it;
…but evidence is emerging that during the past eight years [starting in 2009], Soros, his Open Societies Foundations (OSF), and their many smaller affiliates have received US taxpayer money through USAID and that USAID has made the OSF the main implementer of its aid.
It was in 2009 that USAID started tying development money to countries taking progressive stances on gay/transgender rights, among other leftist causes including legalizing prostitution, and decriminalizing drugs (not in the way many civil libertarians want — but rather the “San Francisco” model). This happened to African countries, and European countries “from Ireland to Macedonia.”
Heritage also noted that despite some aid from USAID being humanitarian aid, as opposed to funding BIPOC transgender interpretive dance courses in Polynesia (OK — I made this one up), we have decades of data to show that it hasn’t improved economic growth and development in the countries funded. So there really is no problem in throwing the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to nearly eliminating USAID.
As outrageous as some of the cartoonish progressive projects that USAID has spent, lighting money on fire isn’t even close to being their most destructive activities.
Here are some examples.
Albania
Albania is the nation most affected by administrative corruption in the region, with 57% of citizens being asked for bribes occasionally, and 47% taking part in corrupt transactions. In collaboration with USAID, the Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) has contributed $60 million between 2000-2015 on so-called justice reform efforts in Albania, and the OSF allocated the funds.
The reform efforts largely helped the ruling Socialist Party consolidate power. The Socialist Party is led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who is photographed with Alex Soros, who calls him his “brother,” on a monthly basis. An OSF strategy paper drafted in 2013, the year Rama’s took power as PM, outlined how to reform Albania’s Constitution. The USAID-Soros-Rama Judicial reform was completed in 2016.
A review of judicial reform efforts in July 2021, exactly five years after their enactment shows how they hardly lived up to the rosy language that the OSF and socialists used in promoting it. The results were devastating;
The OSF and Socialist Party’s attempts to capture Albania’s Constitutional Court and High Inspectorate of Justice left the public without them for nearly four years.
Appeals Courts and Courts of First Instance only have a quarter of the judges they need, and the Supreme Court half. As a result, it’s estimated it would take two decades to clear the backlog of over 100,000 legal cases, 36,000 of which are awaiting being considered by the Supreme Court.
The High Judicial Council outsourced the administration of Supreme Court case files to the Soros and USAID-funded East-West Management Institute, which is run by Rama’s ex-wife, who is also a former OSF Chair. East-West Management has received over $270 million from USAID.
Reforms put NGO networks under the purview of the Socialist Party.
Corruption increased. The price of public works with state budget money in Albania costs between 6-8 times more than public works performed in “similar terrains” with the financing of European Banks.
One can only think of how disastrous Soros’ meddling in America’s justice system has been at the local level — he’s even worse abroad.
North Macedonia’s Color Revolution
In the tiny nation of North Macedonia (formally Macedonia), which has a population just under 2 million, Soros, through his Foundation Open Society Macedonia (FOSM) and his USAID-bolstered activities set up media outlets to push leftist propaganda, and set up 80 organizations with the same goal, including think tanks, journalist associations, groups promoting abortion, drugs, and the wackiest elements of the LGBT agenda. The FOSM was staffed heavily with people from the “reformist” wing of the communist party who were the children of communist party members.
Direct methods for regime change were on the table too.
In 2015 the social-Democratic Social Democratic Union of Macedonia and Soros (with the help of USAID) funded groups to start a Color Revolution to overthrow the ruling conservative VMRO-DPMNE party, which held power since 2006 (and has since regained it). During protests, leftist activists openly gloated about their Soros-backing, wearing shirts wearing “Soros army.” One journalist who posed for a photo wearing one of the shirts also had a TV show that promoted the color revolution in North Macedonia — and at the end of his show a USAID logo is displayed.
Guatemala
A Judicial Watch report exposed how USAID has funneled millions of dollars into programs aligned with OSF’s objectives in Guatemala. Soros networks have spent over $100 million in Latin America since 2015, with “justice reform” as a major interest. Relative to GDP, the OSF spends over twice as much in Guatemala than the US USAID spending in the country has heavily aligned switch Soros-back initiatives there, and has directly funded some, such as the Soros-funded International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.
Like many so-called anti-corruption organizations that Soros has funded, the Commission has been weaponized against right-wing leaders in the country and promotes far-left “reforms.” Their actions led to the resignation of a president that Soros opposed, Otto Perez Molina of the center-right Patriot Party, and also targeted his successor, Jimmy Morales of the right-wing National Convergence Front.
Deny, Deny, Deny
What does the OSF have to say about this? That “The claims that the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, receive funding from USAID or direct the funding of a multibillion-dollar US government agency are manifestly false.”
Liars lie — and the paper trail doesn’t.