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The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. > The money – most of it from

by abeppu 1y ago

The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. > The money – most of it from Open Philanthropy – will go to more than a dozen countries from Indonesia and Uganda to Ghana and Peru. From other sources, I think the US _financial_ commitment was actually pretty minimal ($4M). But if USAID had been providing important governance, administration or coordination, withdrawing its involvement could still destabilize an effort that otherwise could have been impactful. https://healthpolicy-watch.news/us-government-commits-4-million-to-tackle-lead-poisoning/ https://healthpolicy-watch.news/us-government-commits-4-mill... "Blame" is a loaded word. But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? And that the country with the largest military in the world also should be held to a high standard in how it uses that tremendous force? If we were just some average-sized middle-income country, then no one would expect that we should play a disproportionate role in helping things at an international level, or that the use of our military is more criticized than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've had some military presence in other continents pretty much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be able to act with impunity.

dgfitz 1y ago
> The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. So, it doesn’t seem like it matters much if USAID was dismantled then. > But if USAID had been providing important governance, administration or coordination, withdrawing its involvement could still destabilize an effort that otherwise could have been impactful. But, if. “Maybe we can make a lot of assumptions about a lot of things and pretend they’re true, and make an argument about it.” Isn’t the play. Not a real point, or something to even debate. > “Blame" is a loaded word. But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? And that the country with the largest military in the world also should be held to a high standard in how it uses that tremendous force. You completely lost the plot here. You can’t have it both ways. Sure would be pretty neat if _any other country in the WORLD_ stepped up and did… something. Anything. Your argument really died here.
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BobbyJo 1y ago
> But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? I think this is a mischaracterization of parent's point. He didn't say it was strange , and he didn't say we had no role to play. > that the use of our military is more criticized than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've had some military presence in other continents pretty much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be able to act with impunity This seems largely orthogonal to parent's point, which I would rephrase as "We can't be police and not police at the same time. If your expectations require us to be both, they're bad expectations."
- deleted 1y ago
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- abeppu 1y ago
  Ok, so ericmay was not entirely explicit and perhaps we read his point differently. > then I don’t want to hear a peep about us taking any other actions in the world that we deem just I think the noteworthy peeps are not about the mere fact that we involve ourselves in the world outside our borders but that we often do it pretty badly. We attack Iraq with "shock and awe" over WMDs that do not exist, and create the Abu Ghraib prison. We drone strike weddings. We set up puppet governments ... for a while. We sign up for climate accords and then back out (multiple times). I read his point as, "if we have an obligation to fix other people's problems, we shouldn't be subject to complaints when our foreign adventures go wrong". And I think that's crap; we have both an obligation to try to fix the important problems that wealth or force can fix, and we have an obligation to use both carefully and ethically. > which I would rephrase as "We can't be police and not police at the same time. To be clear, in this turmeric story, they did an ad/leaflet campaign about the issue, and then Bangladesh's own Food Safety Authority cracked down. This wasn't about the US enforcing its laws or standards anywhere else. Getting involved and helping to solve a problem doesn't need to mean being the police. And I'm not an expert, but I think almost none of the stuff that flowed through USAID was about being "police".
  - BobbyJo 1y ago

by abeppu 1y ago

dgfitz 1y ago

> The article makes clear that the initiative, though announced by USAID with other partners, was funded primarily by philanthropy. So, it doesn’t seem like it matters much if USAID was dismantled then. > But if USAID had been providing important governance, administration or coordination, withdrawing its involvement could still destabilize an effort that otherwise could have been impactful. But, if. “Maybe we can make a lot of assumptions about a lot of things and pretend they’re true, and make an argument about it.” Isn’t the play. Not a real point, or something to even debate. > “Blame" is a loaded word. But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? And that the country with the largest military in the world also should be held to a high standard in how it uses that tremendous force. You completely lost the plot here. You can’t have it both ways. Sure would be pretty neat if _any other country in the WORLD_ stepped up and did… something. Anything. Your argument really died here.

deleted 1y ago

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BobbyJo 1y ago

> But is it really so strange to you to think that the richest and most powerful country might have some role to play in international problems that arise from comparative poverty? I think this is a mischaracterization of parent's point. He didn't say it was strange , and he didn't say we had no role to play. > that the use of our military is more criticized than any other. But we're big and rich and powerful and we've had some military presence in other continents pretty much continuously since WWII, and we shouldn't expect to be able to act with impunity This seems largely orthogonal to parent's point, which I would rephrase as "We can't be police and not police at the same time. If your expectations require us to be both, they're bad expectations."

deleted 1y ago
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abeppu 1y ago
Ok, so ericmay was not entirely explicit and perhaps we read his point differently. > then I don’t want to hear a peep about us taking any other actions in the world that we deem just I think the noteworthy peeps are not about the mere fact that we involve ourselves in the world outside our borders but that we often do it pretty badly. We attack Iraq with "shock and awe" over WMDs that do not exist, and create the Abu Ghraib prison. We drone strike weddings. We set up puppet governments ... for a while. We sign up for climate accords and then back out (multiple times). I read his point as, "if we have an obligation to fix other people's problems, we shouldn't be subject to complaints when our foreign adventures go wrong". And I think that's crap; we have both an obligation to try to fix the important problems that wealth or force can fix, and we have an obligation to use both carefully and ethically. > which I would rephrase as "We can't be police and not police at the same time. To be clear, in this turmeric story, they did an ad/leaflet campaign about the issue, and then Bangladesh's own Food Safety Authority cracked down. This wasn't about the US enforcing its laws or standards anywhere else. Getting involved and helping to solve a problem doesn't need to mean being the police. And I'm not an expert, but I think almost none of the stuff that flowed through USAID was about being "police".
- BobbyJo 1y ago