The point of USAID is (was?) to project soft power, it’s got nothing to do with responsibility.
Previous administrations figured it was worthwhile to run these aid programs. Good PR, or a vehicle/cover for more nefarious activities. People came to rely on it, and it getting pulled suddenly upsets things. The article does mention Thai hospitals picking up some of the slack, but presumably they aren’t set up to take on all of the patients overnight, so inevitably the abruptness of the change leads to tragedies.
In the narrow sense of independent individuals/states, you are correct. A country does not have a responsibility to run foreign aid programs. However, once you do, you enter into a agreement that involves some responsibility because now others are relying on you to fulfill your commitment.
Put simply, say you want to climb up a ladder and need someone to help, say, keep their finger on a button that prevents the ladder from toppling over. I have no responsibility to help you. However, to be nice I agree to help you. I press the button down and you climb up. Now say I change my mind and I want to go do something else. I now have a responsibility to tell you so you can safely come down and find another solution. What the US is doing now is shouting up at you while you’re on the ladder and saying “hey, I changed my mind. Sorry, but I actually have no responsibility to help you out”
This is a good point, well articulated and I agree with you.
When I say “it has nothing to do with responsibility” I’m thinking of what motivates the USA to provide this aid. Maybe I’m a cynic but I don’t believe they would ever spend money in a foreign nation simply because it’s the responsible thing to do.
But yeah, they are responsible for multiple reasons, as the ladder analogy explains, and as another commenter mentioned, for the part the USA and other privileged nations have played in creating the problems these aid programs are addressing, through colonialism and climate change. The USA specifically also did immeasurable damage to this part of the world going to war with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
I see, thanks for clarifying! I agree with all of that.
I wouldn’t even say it’s a cynical view, rather a realpolitik view. USAID was started and continued as a way to develop soft power and counter Soviet influence in the world.
You must not have been online for very long. There’s a ton of bad actors that pose these sort of questions as a challenge rather than actually asking to learn more. Its a bit less common on Lemmy than other social platforms but, you still run into them. That’s why you’ll run into downvotes and aggressive responses. Its a shame that things are like this, but until these bad actors disappear, we’ll continue to see this sort of thing.
To add to eatCasserol’s answer, other peer nations to the US also provide similar forms of foreign aid for similar reasons. The US actually provides less as a percent of GDP (actual numbers are higher though, is my understanding). So this isn’t an exclusively unique US thing.
I’ve been online since 1995 in some way or another.
But Lemmy is uniquely fanatical about this shit. Lemmy and other bits of the fediverse are just in that position right now – they’re on the very edge of the norm, so the people you run into are always on the edge of their respective things too. I’d say most people on the fediverse would be considered early-early adopters. We’re not even in the regular “early adopter” stage yet.
I recommend you check out reddit if you want to see “fanatical”. I put it in quotes because there’s a damn good reason: Reddit has a significant number of “conservative” bad actors. They post absolute nonsense and try to assert its true, or ask “questions” (stuff like is racism really bad or other questions to bring up controversial ideas, and try to brigade and assert extreme views are normal). I feel lemmy is still not popular enough for companies to try to swarm it with bots and influence people, but if it grows, that will become a problem.
Lemmy was already swarmed with bots during the election cycle. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t have known. Hundreds of ‘can’t vote for harris because of palestine’ bots rose up, convinced people voting for her was just as evil as being an actual nazi, and then as soon as election was over, the accounts all disappeared. I was only following like 13 of them, but all 13 vanished overnight.
Lemmy is absolutely popular enough (and easy enough to automate) that it’s being astroturfed.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen here, but i feel the extents is hugely different compared to reddit. Trump subreddits and /r/conservative are constant trash and show up on all. Either I don’t see communities that consistently spew propaganda, and disinformation here, or its just not as bad here.
The point of USAID is (was?) to project soft power, it’s got nothing to do with responsibility.
Previous administrations figured it was worthwhile to run these aid programs. Good PR, or a vehicle/cover for more nefarious activities. People came to rely on it, and it getting pulled suddenly upsets things. The article does mention Thai hospitals picking up some of the slack, but presumably they aren’t set up to take on all of the patients overnight, so inevitably the abruptness of the change leads to tragedies.
In the narrow sense of independent individuals/states, you are correct. A country does not have a responsibility to run foreign aid programs. However, once you do, you enter into a agreement that involves some responsibility because now others are relying on you to fulfill your commitment.
Put simply, say you want to climb up a ladder and need someone to help, say, keep their finger on a button that prevents the ladder from toppling over. I have no responsibility to help you. However, to be nice I agree to help you. I press the button down and you climb up. Now say I change my mind and I want to go do something else. I now have a responsibility to tell you so you can safely come down and find another solution. What the US is doing now is shouting up at you while you’re on the ladder and saying “hey, I changed my mind. Sorry, but I actually have no responsibility to help you out”
This is a good point, well articulated and I agree with you.
When I say “it has nothing to do with responsibility” I’m thinking of what motivates the USA to provide this aid. Maybe I’m a cynic but I don’t believe they would ever spend money in a foreign nation simply because it’s the responsible thing to do.
But yeah, they are responsible for multiple reasons, as the ladder analogy explains, and as another commenter mentioned, for the part the USA and other privileged nations have played in creating the problems these aid programs are addressing, through colonialism and climate change. The USA specifically also did immeasurable damage to this part of the world going to war with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
I see, thanks for clarifying! I agree with all of that. I wouldn’t even say it’s a cynical view, rather a realpolitik view. USAID was started and continued as a way to develop soft power and counter Soviet influence in the world.
Thanks for being a reasonable person here on Lemmy. Weird that I have to thank people for just having adult discussion, but here we are.
You must not have been online for very long. There’s a ton of bad actors that pose these sort of questions as a challenge rather than actually asking to learn more. Its a bit less common on Lemmy than other social platforms but, you still run into them. That’s why you’ll run into downvotes and aggressive responses. Its a shame that things are like this, but until these bad actors disappear, we’ll continue to see this sort of thing. To add to eatCasserol’s answer, other peer nations to the US also provide similar forms of foreign aid for similar reasons. The US actually provides less as a percent of GDP (actual numbers are higher though, is my understanding). So this isn’t an exclusively unique US thing.
I’ve been online since 1995 in some way or another.
But Lemmy is uniquely fanatical about this shit. Lemmy and other bits of the fediverse are just in that position right now – they’re on the very edge of the norm, so the people you run into are always on the edge of their respective things too. I’d say most people on the fediverse would be considered early-early adopters. We’re not even in the regular “early adopter” stage yet.
I recommend you check out reddit if you want to see “fanatical”. I put it in quotes because there’s a damn good reason: Reddit has a significant number of “conservative” bad actors. They post absolute nonsense and try to assert its true, or ask “questions” (stuff like is racism really bad or other questions to bring up controversial ideas, and try to brigade and assert extreme views are normal). I feel lemmy is still not popular enough for companies to try to swarm it with bots and influence people, but if it grows, that will become a problem.
Lemmy was already swarmed with bots during the election cycle. If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t have known. Hundreds of ‘can’t vote for harris because of palestine’ bots rose up, convinced people voting for her was just as evil as being an actual nazi, and then as soon as election was over, the accounts all disappeared. I was only following like 13 of them, but all 13 vanished overnight.
Lemmy is absolutely popular enough (and easy enough to automate) that it’s being astroturfed.
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen here, but i feel the extents is hugely different compared to reddit. Trump subreddits and /r/conservative are constant trash and show up on all. Either I don’t see communities that consistently spew propaganda, and disinformation here, or its just not as bad here.
And likewise thanks for actually being curious and posing the question in good faith! We need more adult discussions.