Biden, USAID: No budget for 'retarded children'

That's what we were told in 2008 when calling on both USAID and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who are in overall charge of USAID funding,

Chairing the committee at the time was Joe Biden the current Vice President who was recently reported to have spent more than half a million dollars on a one night hotel stay in Paris.  Not the first indiscretion for this VP who had earlier spent a similar amount in a London hotel.

As leader of the US delegation to the installation of Pope Francis he'd said: 

“The Catholic Church plays an essential role in my life and the lives of more than a billion people in America and around the world, not just in matters of our faith, but in pursuit of peace and human dignity for all faiths,” he said.

Yeah right. Just like us then.  

More than a decade earlier, the recipient of the USAID dismissal had warned President Clinton of the risk in income inequality, having been invited to join the steering group for Clinton's re-election. In 2003 he'd been fasting from a tent in Chapel Hill NC, having returned from his self-funded efforts to tackle poverty in Eastern Europe.

Today there are many more like him, trying to survive in tent camps and on the streets.    

In 2003, when confronting the deputy finance minister in Crimea who saw opportunity in the funding USAID had brought to the table, he was told '"This has got nothing to do with you, it's not your money". To which he replied "Yes it is my money and that of every taxpaying American and if you think you can push me out of the way you can go fuck yourself" . He then blocked his own project, using copyright to ensure that unscrupulous politicians didn't benefit from two years of his effort at his own cost. The background story of the Crimean Tatar project will be found in the P-CED  projects and notes left after the authors death.

With focus on helping the Crimean Tatars, a peaceful Muslim community the proposal reasoned: 

"Just as the US now heavily uses smart bombs in warfare, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the equivalent is needed in aid efforts. It is not enough to spend, say, US$ 7 million dollars for five Tomahawk cruise missiles and then spend a fraction of that amount in building a peaceful community which does not merit targeting by missiles. Yet, that is what we have in this case. "

In 2007, with the 'Marshall Plan' strategy paper we'd brought a social enterprise development proposal to the table and the following year USAID arrived with the East Europe Foundation offering grants to community organisations focussing on social problems. With a decision promised with a month, it had been 3 months since the application for a rehab centre for disabled children, which had been described in the strategy paper and pledged that same year by Ukraine's government.

The letter to USAID in February 2008, drew their attention to the strategy paper and the activities of organised crime, including the trade in human foetuses, exposed by a local human rights group. It appealed for a "smart" strategy which placed human need ahead of ordnance,

It had suggested that what was being spent each week in the war on Iraq could be used to lift multitudes out of poverty. In hindsight a better comparison might have been the projected cost of a high maintenance diplomat.  

Two years later, USAID would introduce their own social enterprise development initiative in partnership with the British Council and a year later, the author would die in poverty as one of around 50 million Americans without health insurance.

Biden's contrasting taste for the high life disgusts me, as it should all tax paying Americans, let alone those who go beyond concerns for merely themselves. 

 

 

 

.    .