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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   35303 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 3, 2025

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You know, I accept just about all the rest of the post. But this is silly. A US agency needing to distribute food in the Ivory Coast needs to understand the actual (unvarnished truth of) the situation on the ground there, at the very least so they don't hire a boat to go dock in a harbor right before the rebels grab it or try to truck it through some area where the government has (in fact, but not avowedly) lost control.

I see no reason why this requires keeping secrets from the American public. If the unvarnished truth is inaccessible to the public, how can they meaningfully exercise democratic control over these expenditures?

Ok, well if, to you, democratic control means the military and spy agencies can’t have classified sources, methods and documents, then you’ve lost the plot. Should they just up and publish the as-yet unknown capabilities of our weapons systems? Should they have published the details of operation overlord to the Germans?

I’m all for oversight, which is why there’s a select committee in Congress, chosen by Congress, that looks at this stuff. If you want to strengthen that system on the margins, I’d join you. But an unqualified statement is unserious.

Ok, well if, to you, democratic control means the military and spy agencies can’t have classified sources, methods and documents, then you’ve lost the plot.

We are not discussing the military and spy agencies. We are discussing the department of funding Trans Opera in Ecuador. I defy you to argue why USAID needs to keep secrets from the American public.

You're being purposefully dense. The classified documents were originated by the military and spy agencies and then utilized by USAID to help them assess & plan operations in unstable parts of the world.

There is an obvious reason why such materials were classified at inception and an obvious reason why USAID would benefit from using them.

Only in the most fever-dreamed imagination could this be fairly construed as "USAID keeping secrets from the American public" as opposed to "USAID making us of existing government secrets".

I've made clear I'm not even a fan of USAID and I'd vote to abolish it or fold it into State or whatever else. But this is an idiotic line of reasoning.

Aid agencies probably do need some classified political intelligence.

This feels like a fully general argument against government secrecy.

Then your feelings need calibration, because it is actually an argument against government secrecy regarding the distribution of foreign aid. I am actually not that fond of the other sorts of Government secrets either, but I can recognize that with regards to war and espionage, unilateral disarmament would be unwise. But this is not war or espionage. This is the expenditure of taxpayer's money, purportedly for straightforward humanitarian purposes.

There is no actual need for the people in charge of distributing food to the Ivory Coast to be provided with super-secret-squirrel information about "the actual situation on the ground", given that they are supposed to be directed by the State Department under the leadership of the President. If secret information indicates that they should do things in a specific way, they can be directed to do things in that specific way with no explanation as to why.

There is no actual need for the people in charge of distributing food to the Ivory Coast to be provided with super-secret-squirrel information about "the actual situation on the ground", given that they are supposed to be directed by the State Department under the leadership of the President. If secret information indicates that they should do things in a specific way, they can be directed to do things in that specific way with no explanation as to why.

This is just kicking the can down the road.

At some point, a civil servant learns about the secret information and directs USAID to distribute aid things in a particular way or avoid particular things. That person is (a fortiori, since he is directing them!) in charge of distributing food to the Ivory Coast.

At most, you're saying that the administrative or personnel boundary between USAID and State should have put more analysis and decision making on State and less on USAID such that the guy in charge of distributing food that also has secret information happens to be on the State side and not on the USAID side. That's fine, but that really doesn't change much except shuffle roles around an organizational divide.

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