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 2 - Washington’s “moderate rebels” bring polio back to Syria
The Syrian government achieved a public health milestone in 1999 when it fully eradicated polio through a nationwide vaccination drive. Fifteen years later, however, the World Health Organization had declared a public health emergency as polio returned and threatened to spread to neighboring countries.
Why had an entirely preventable disease been able to creep back into Syrian communities? The answer was simple: the country had been destabilized by a proxy war fueled by the US and its allies, placing entire regions under the control of extremist militias that severed those under their control from the public healthcare system.
Operation Timber Sycamore, a semi-covert operation to topple the Syrian government, officially began in 2012. Through this multi-billion-dollar arm-and-equip operation, the CIA sent weapons over the Turkish border and placed them in the hands of fanatical Islamist fighters marketed to the American public as “moderate rebels.” Within months, large sections of the country were overrun by extremist militias, which proceeded to destroy infrastructure and place previously functional public services under their theocratic rule.
In areas that were captured by anti-government militants, USAID enacted a $340 million program to establish a parallel government it dreamed would eventually replace the one in Damascus, which the US aimed to topple. To do so, it dumped funding into supposed “civil society” groups such as the White Helmets, and opposition media outfits like Radio Fresh. Meanwhile, a British firm called Adam Smith International received a contract to help establish a “Free Syrian Police” force capable of imposing law and order.
Behind the scenes, while the White Helmets reaped Nobel Prize nominations and relentless corporate media promotion, the group became a de facto MASH unit for jihadist militias, participating in public executions and other atrocities carried out by the armed Islamists it accompanied.
Radio Fresh was forced to broadcast Arabic lyrics over farm animal sounds to skirt theocratic rules forbidding the playing of music. Its US-funded founder, Raed Fares, was assassinated in 2018 by members of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate.
For its part, the “Free Syrian Police” was quickly infiltrated by extremist militias, helping them consolidate control over the Idlib province of Syria, which the Syrian government is still fighting to liberate.
In perhaps its only evaluation report on its activities in Syria, USAID’s inspector general conceded it had no idea what was taking place in supposedly “liberated” territory: “The extent to which [the Office of Transition Initiative’s] efforts were successfully building inclusive and accountable governance structures was still unclear,” the report concluded.
USAID’s inspector general added that “the ongoing conflict resulted in challenges that have led to delays in development and implementation of these activities.” (The coronavirus bailout provides the inspector general with an additional $1 million to monitor USAID activities supported by the new Emergency Support Fund.)
As insurgent-occupied areas of Syria degenerated into dystopian Wahhabi fiefdoms, foreign fighters slipped in by the tens of thousand. Some of them hailed from a country that had just seen its own polio outbreak thanks to a cynical US intelligence operation that involved USAID.
And almost as soon as polio struck Syria, a celebrity public health expert with ties to the US State Department began working with the Syrian opposition to weaponize the outbreak in the service of regime change.
Why had an entirely preventable disease been able to creep back into Syrian communities? The answer was simple: the country had been destabilized by a proxy war fueled by the US and its allies, placing entire regions under the control of extremist militias that severed those under their control from the public healthcare system.
Operation Timber Sycamore, a semi-covert operation to topple the Syrian government, officially began in 2012. Through this multi-billion-dollar arm-and-equip operation, the CIA sent weapons over the Turkish border and placed them in the hands of fanatical Islamist fighters marketed to the American public as “moderate rebels.” Within months, large sections of the country were overrun by extremist militias, which proceeded to destroy infrastructure and place previously functional public services under their theocratic rule.
In areas that were captured by anti-government militants, USAID enacted a $340 million program to establish a parallel government it dreamed would eventually replace the one in Damascus, which the US aimed to topple. To do so, it dumped funding into supposed “civil society” groups such as the White Helmets, and opposition media outfits like Radio Fresh. Meanwhile, a British firm called Adam Smith International received a contract to help establish a “Free Syrian Police” force capable of imposing law and order.
Behind the scenes, while the White Helmets reaped Nobel Prize nominations and relentless corporate media promotion, the group became a de facto MASH unit for jihadist militias, participating in public executions and other atrocities carried out by the armed Islamists it accompanied.
Radio Fresh was forced to broadcast Arabic lyrics over farm animal sounds to skirt theocratic rules forbidding the playing of music. Its US-funded founder, Raed Fares, was assassinated in 2018 by members of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate.
For its part, the “Free Syrian Police” was quickly infiltrated by extremist militias, helping them consolidate control over the Idlib province of Syria, which the Syrian government is still fighting to liberate.
In perhaps its only evaluation report on its activities in Syria, USAID’s inspector general conceded it had no idea what was taking place in supposedly “liberated” territory: “The extent to which [the Office of Transition Initiative’s] efforts were successfully building inclusive and accountable governance structures was still unclear,” the report concluded.
USAID’s inspector general added that “the ongoing conflict resulted in challenges that have led to delays in development and implementation of these activities.” (The coronavirus bailout provides the inspector general with an additional $1 million to monitor USAID activities supported by the new Emergency Support Fund.)
As insurgent-occupied areas of Syria degenerated into dystopian Wahhabi fiefdoms, foreign fighters slipped in by the tens of thousand. Some of them hailed from a country that had just seen its own polio outbreak thanks to a cynical US intelligence operation that involved USAID.
And almost as soon as polio struck Syria, a celebrity public health expert with ties to the US State Department began working with the Syrian opposition to weaponize the outbreak in the service of regime change.
Source, links:
Comments
Post a Comment