Coronavirus stimulus bill funds State Dept/USAID operations that once helped trigger polio outbreak in Syria
A look at recent USAID schemes from Pakistan to Syria shows US empire can be very hazardous to your health.
by Max Blumenthal
Part 1
While the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill was authored in the spirit of beating back a pandemic, buried deep within its text is a stipend for the US State Department operations dedicated to carrying out foreign interventions that have contributed to the outbreak of preventable diseases like polio in Syria and Pakistan.
Passed unanimously by Congress this March, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides $250 million for the State Department to implement “economic, security, and stabilization” activities through an “Economic Support Fund” (ESF). Earmarked for activities through September 2020, the bill authorizes the State Department to fund “international organizations.”
While the bill does not specify which organizations qualify for funding, many recent State Department “security and stabilization” operations have relied heavily on foreign proxies which did exactly the opposite of improving public health systems. This was particularly true in Syria, where the US embarked on a multi-billion-dollar regime-change operation that actively destabilized large swaths of the country, resulting in the resurgence of polio just 15 years after the Syrian government had eradicated it.
The disease likely returned to the country thanks to the infiltration of jihadist fighters from Pakistan, where the CIA had destroyed confidence in anti-polio efforts by launching a fake vaccination drive that doubled as a spying campaign in its hunt for Osama bin Laden.
At the center of the destructive interventions in Syria and Pakistan was the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a State Department subsidiary that functions as the humanitarian arm of American empire.
In Syria, USAID attempted to construct a parallel government in regions controlled by foreign-backed, anti-government militants, helping to consolidate extremist control while doing nothing to stop the resurgence of preventable diseases. Earlier in Pakistan, the supposed aid agency not only partnered with the CIA to organize the sham vaccination drive, it recruited the doctor who oversaw it.
This sordid history should raise serious questions about the massive Emergency Support Fund allocated to the State Department and USAID under the guise of fighting coronavirus. Not only is the ESF classified by the Congressional Research Service as a “non-health development assistance account,” its recipients have contributed to the delegitimization of public health systems and the spread of disease in countries already plagued by US intervention.
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