Thursday 3 April 2014

Another Blow For America's Credibility

When Raul Castro took over the reins of Cuba, he relaxed the laws on the use of mobile technology and soon Cuban youngsters were signing up for ZunZuneo, a network along the lines of Twitter, unbeknown to them that it was actually a United States engineered text messaging service to try and spread unrest in the Communist country.
The project was financed by the US Agency for international development (USAID), best known for overseeing billions of dollars in US humanitarian aid, and the plan was to gain users by allowing access to light news stories, such as baseball results, music and weather updates and then introduce political stories aimed at pushing them toward dissent and causing unrest with the result being a 'Cuban Spring'.
Interest was being lost in the project with every month that passed, and, by the summer of 2012, Cubans began to complain that the service was inconsistent, and then one day it just disappeared.
A White House spokesman has said that he was not aware of individuals in the White House who were aware of the program and that President Obama does support efforts to expand communications in Cuba.
Apart from being exposed attempting to cause an uprising in another country, the USAID will now be suspected of conducting covert actions under the3 guise of delivering aid to the world's poor and vulnerable, a point made by Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee who said: 'USAID is flying the American flag and should be recognised around the globe as an honest broker of doing good. If they start participating in covert, subversive activities, the credibility of the United States is diminished'.
Diminished further i think he meant as America has long ceased being viewed as an honest broker.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

when did we have to start being "an honest broker" with our stated adversaries?

when did it become wrong to try to overthrow a government that would overthrow us if they could?

q

Lucy said...

'overthrow a government that would overthrow us if they could'

Examples of Cuba contemplating, making any plans or mentioning overthrowing the American Government please.

Anonymous said...

Right, communist left wing tyrrants are all nice guys and would never use force to take what they want. The sarcasm is dripping right!

Lucy said...

I'm sorry, you sounded like you had hard evidence that Cuba had been trying to overthrow the US Government. Seems it was just your opinion after all. I apologise for assuming that your opinion was a fact and you have evidence to back it up.

Anonymous said...

oh my god, and your opinions are backed by fact? not

why would a pukie little country like cuba announce a plan to overthrow a significant nation? unless they wanted to become a state for improved wel-fare programs...

q

Lucy said...

If i am making an opinion i try to make it clear and if it is a fact i try to back it up with some evidence or source.