Many Americans skeptical of the government give no second thought to USAID. The agency may be spending taxpayers' money overseas, they figure, but at least it's for the purpose of buying the world's goodwill with American kindness and generosity, right?
Little do they know that USAID also produces threatening political ads, and tries to subvert governments through pop culture. Recent reports by AP (see here) indicate the U.S. agency has tried to foment a coup in Cuba by infiltrating the Cuban hip-hop scene. This was part of a broader scheme involving a knockoff of Twitter, some details of which emerged earlier this year. Though some U.S. government officials (e.g. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy) are blasting the venture as "reckless and stupid," USAID is claiming it was only "developing civil society."
It is certainly interesting that the original round of revelations about the project, supposedly discontinued in 2012, were leaked to the media as everyone was paying attention to the political meltdown in Ukraine this spring - and this story comes while everyone is focusing on the CIA torture report. The best time to "to take out the trash" is when the public's attention is elsewhere...
Notice also that only one person has been identified by name in the whole scandal: one Rajko Bozic, called "a Serbian contractor," though Western media indicate he wasn't the only Serbian "music promoter" working the gig. Turns out Bozic isn't an ordinary music promoter - Serbian papers reveal he was "involved in projects in Tunisia, Ukraine, Lebanon and Zimbabwe." So he is really one of those professional revolutionary types, who go around the world spreading the Imperial gospel of "democracy" and "human rights." This particular lot was chosen because of their role in the Exit Festival, a drugs-and-alcohol-addled extravaganza started in 2000 as part of the campaign to overthrow the government, and continued every year since, at Serbian taxpayers' expense.
But don't believe for a second their "outing" as Serbian is an accident, or an irrelevant detail. Back in 2011, when a damning documentary appeared linking these professional putschists to the so-called "Arab Spring" upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, I wrote:
Little do they know that USAID also produces threatening political ads, and tries to subvert governments through pop culture. Recent reports by AP (see here) indicate the U.S. agency has tried to foment a coup in Cuba by infiltrating the Cuban hip-hop scene. This was part of a broader scheme involving a knockoff of Twitter, some details of which emerged earlier this year. Though some U.S. government officials (e.g. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy) are blasting the venture as "reckless and stupid," USAID is claiming it was only "developing civil society."
It is certainly interesting that the original round of revelations about the project, supposedly discontinued in 2012, were leaked to the media as everyone was paying attention to the political meltdown in Ukraine this spring - and this story comes while everyone is focusing on the CIA torture report. The best time to "to take out the trash" is when the public's attention is elsewhere...
Notice also that only one person has been identified by name in the whole scandal: one Rajko Bozic, called "a Serbian contractor," though Western media indicate he wasn't the only Serbian "music promoter" working the gig. Turns out Bozic isn't an ordinary music promoter - Serbian papers reveal he was "involved in projects in Tunisia, Ukraine, Lebanon and Zimbabwe." So he is really one of those professional revolutionary types, who go around the world spreading the Imperial gospel of "democracy" and "human rights." This particular lot was chosen because of their role in the Exit Festival, a drugs-and-alcohol-addled extravaganza started in 2000 as part of the campaign to overthrow the government, and continued every year since, at Serbian taxpayers' expense.
But don't believe for a second their "outing" as Serbian is an accident, or an irrelevant detail. Back in 2011, when a damning documentary appeared linking these professional putschists to the so-called "Arab Spring" upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, I wrote:
"Branding [them] as Serbian is no accident. Few in the world would be inclined to suspect a Serb of working for the Empire, after everything that happened in the Balkans in the 1990s... Merely defeating and conquering Serbia would not do. The Serbs had to be turned into the Empire’s most dedicated servants: when even a people like that can be so thoroughly crushed, resistance to the Empire must surely be futile."And while every place that's been touched by these "activists" bears the scars of their involvement, Serbia is actually run by them, and has been for the past 14 years. So great has this "democratic democracy" been, ordinary Serbians are now worse off than during the era of sanctions and war. That ought to tell you everything about the kind of bliss these people - and their paymasters - truly stand for.
The fact that the mainstream media is always praising the EXIT festival without a lot of the "obligatory bashing" of Serbs is one clue you know it serves their purposes.
ReplyDeletePlus I have heard (non-EXIT loving) Serbs say that it costs $1.5 million from the Serbian budget - it can not even cover its own expenses - which shows you it is really not a "success." Something which needs year after year after year, etc., of heavy government financing is a drain on the economy/country.
About 2 or 3 years ago, some Serbian government official stated that the state would no longer send the festival money and one of the EXIT directors/founders threw a hissy fit (I think it was someone other than this CIA spy guy). I believe it ended up a bluff and the Serbian government is still paying, but maybe you can figure out how much the Serbian government is still budgeting for it.
This is not related, it is just a FYI - it is about a Bosnian woman in St. Louis who has been discovered to have totally made up her recent claim she was pulled out of her car, threatened with death, and beaten by young black men. She made it all up - video surveillance shows her just getting out of her car and lying down on the street until another motorist comes!
ReplyDeleteI bring it up because I am astonished at how people just lie and fabricate so easily - and this is what the Bosniaks (and others) did against the Serbs.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/st-louis-bosnian-woman-who-claimed-hate-crime-charged-with/article_2d835f8c-5385-5c5d-9496-de7b6559070f.html
Ah, James, that would have been an appropriate comment on the previous post... But yes, it speaks volumes. And it's especially cynical just a few days after a Bosnian Muslim man (Zemir Begic) was *actually* murdered in precisely such a fashion...
ReplyDelete"But don't believe for a second their "outing" as Serbian is an accident, or an irrelevant detail. Back in 2011, when a damning documentary appeared linking these professional putschists to the so-called "Arab Spring" upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria"
ReplyDeleteI saw that documentary back in 2011 as well and believe me i wasn't surprised when i heard that a Serb or Serbians were involved in such protest operation programs.
No doubt they should be happy just how much there works have left Libya in ruins and in a state of Civil War.
"ordinary Serbians are now worse off than during the era of sanctions and war. "
I can agree with you on that, it isn't just the Serbs but the whole Balkans.
At least in Yusgalavia people had jobs compared to now.
America's elite and the Globe elites are desperate pushing there sick ideology onto everyone.