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Grok correcting Musk again (discuss.online)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/enoughmuskspam@lemmy.world
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[–] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Far from saving lives, the program works to create export markets to siphon away natural resources, domestic talent, and public property.

PEPFAR alone is credited with saving roughly 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS

The Lancet projected the cuts could cause around 14 million additional deaths by 2030, a third of them children. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext

You can't square "this program never saved lives" with the documented body count of removing it. If USAID were merely a corporate wedge, ending it should have been consequence-free. It wasn't.

Yes, US aid has always served strategic interests. But "aid serves US influence" and "aid saves millions of lives" are both true simultaneously.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    PEPFAR alone is credited with saving roughly 25 million lives from HIV/AIDS

    PEPFAR walled off life-saving therapies behind patents and distribution bottlenecks, then limited distribution of the medication to countries that submitted to US foreign policy and economic exploitation. These lives weren't saved, they were ransomed.

    You can’t square “this program never saved lives” with the documented body count of removing it.

    The documented body count ignores the impact of US sanctions and predatory lending practices, designed to impoverish countries that buck domestic policies.

    You fuckers see this crystal clear when a Chinese aid program does it, but you squeeze your eyes shut like oystershells even when you're presented with Americans doing the exact same thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago

    PEPFAR walled off life-saving therapies behind patents and distribution bottlenecks, then limited distribution of the medication to countries that submitted to US foreign policy and economic exploitation. These lives weren't saved, they were ransomed.

    PEPFAR operated in countries that routinely vote against the US at the UN. If it was a loyalty program, it was a remarkably bad one.

    You fuckers see this crystal clear when a Chinese aid program does it, but you squeeze your eyes shut like oystershells even when you're presented with Americans doing the exact same thing.

    Now you're just projecting onto me. I've said nothing bad about Chinese aid, at all, ever.

    The consistent position isn't "US aid bad, Chinese aid bad" or the reverse. It's that aid can serve strategic influence and deliver real material benefit simultaneously.

    Chinese built hospitals and vaccine shipments helped people even though Belt and Road serves Beijing's interests. PEPFAR saved lives even though it served Washington's.

    You are the one being hypocritical. You treat motive as disqualifying only when the flag is American.

    Let me ask you this directly: Does Chinese aid save zero lives the same way you're saying USAID did not?

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