A USAID conspiracy

I am not a conspiracy kook, but why is Musk and Trump going after them so hard?

I have a little story about USAID and me. Way back in the later summer of 1991, there was this little thing called Desert Shield, when the U.S. began a huge military buildup in Saudi Arabia, purportedly to stop Saddam Hussein’s army, which had taken Kuwait, from entering the kingdom.

Being unemployed, I was addicted to 24/7 coverage this got. Then I realized I knew someone in Dharan, where the U.S. military had established its HQ. (Dharan is on the gulf coast, nestled close to Bahrain and Qatar. Funny, we’ve never left.) I don’t remember how I got access to the AUTOVON (DSN) system and the number for the USAID office there, but I did. You could say I was resourceful and knew people in the USAF. So I called my high school English teacher, who had left teaching (he was Army reserve) to work for USAID, and boy was he surprised when he picked up the phone.

USAID Pakistan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

I just assumed USAID was a spy organization posing as an international aid enterprise. I have always assumed it since it’s usually embedded with our military and operates in places where there’s war or danger of war. I could not imagine why the U.S. needs some agency for international development that is not a spy organization. I figured it was obvious.

I honestly never gave USAID another thought until Elon Musk vowed to shut it down, and convinced President Trump to do it. USAID is a tiny part of the federal government, with about 10,000 employees, which consumes just under $2 billion of the budget. That’s so far to the right of the decimal point as to be lost in the noise of the federal budget. USAID administers funding—around $40 billion—appropriated for State Department and foreign aid operations, including food aid that’s part of the USDA budget.

USAID has programs like “women’s equality” in places like Pakistan, where women are not treated equally. I suppose some of the programs would look like DEI if you squinted really hard and decided to apply them to an American context, but in reality they are just promoting mainstream American ideals to countries that don’t share them. In other words, USAID is about as woke as the USO.

But I do think it’s a spy ring. I keep thinking about the movie “Three Days of the Condor,” where Robert Redford plays a character who works for some obscure branch of the CIA that reads books, but in reality is the tip of a giant iceberg of conspiracy involving oil and toppling governments. In real life, DOGE “agents” (kids sporting laptops and peach fuzz) tried to examine USAID’s systems, and were denied entry. If this was a Sydney Pollack movie, DOGE’s next move would be to show up with submachine guns and eliminate everyone.

But instead, President Trump eviscerated USAID, and placed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as its temporary head. Trump has said he wants to shut down the agency, but I am not sure that’s legal, given Congress gets to decide what gets funded and what gets shuttered. USAID was part of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act signed by President John F. Kennedy. In order for the agency to be shut down, it would be Congress, not the president, that would amend the 1961 law.

Government 101, for Mr. Musk, if he’s listening: Congress makes laws. The president executes those laws. Hence, they are known as the legislative and executive branches. The executive branch does not get to decide what is law and change it. USAID’s “right to exist” stems from the law that created it, not from the whim of the White House. Therefore, whatever Trump is doing, if he or Rubio tries to shutter USAID, that’s illegal.

My question remains: why would Musk care if USAID continues to operate? Who is it harming? I keep going back to the conspiracy option. What is USAID doing that somehow compromises something else that Musk is doing? Had it stumbled upon some deal Musk made with China, or with Vladimir Putin? Is Musk like “Joubert” (played by the late Max von Sydow) in “Three Days of the Condor”? Do USAID employees need to fear for their lives?

How deep does the conspiracy go? Where does it lead?

Sigh. It’s probably nothing more than “you dare defy me!” here. There’s probably no giant conspiracy involving USAID employees stumbling on Musks’ plans for world domination (or manipulating the oil market).

Whatever. You’ll be hard pressed to convince me that USAID is not a spy organization, and that whatever reason its employees had to keep DOGE’s nose out of its business is probably justified by national security. That means shutting it down, or disrupting USAID’s operations, is likely harming our country. But when has that ever stopped Donald Trump from getting his petulant way?

I still think the conspiracy version is better, though.

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