We are now witnessing what the historian Richard Rhodes termed “public man-made death,” which, he observed, has been perhaps the most overlooked cause of mortality in the last century. Brooke Nichols, the Boston University epidemiologist and mathematical modeller, has maintained a respected tracker of current impact. The model is conservative, assuming, for example, that the State Department will fully sustain the programs that remain. As of November 5th, it estimated that U.S.A.I.D.’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.
The toll is appalling and will continue to grow. But these losses will be harder to see than those of war. For one, they unfold slowly. When H.I.V. or tuberculosis goes untested, unprevented, or inadequately treated, months or years can pass before a person dies. The same is true for deaths from vaccine-preventable illnesses. Another difficulty is that the deaths are scattered. Suppose the sudden withdrawal of aid raises a country’s under-five death rate from three per cent to four per cent. That would be a one-third increase in deaths, but hard to appreciate simply by looking around.
This is by design 🫠
And the designers need a healthy dose of justice.
Not so much design as lack of giving a fuck. Not even so much a racist thing, American’s just don’t give a fuck what happens to foreigners unless it affects them directly.
The whole point of the exercise wasn’t to be the good guys, it was to flex soft power, good will. America has given that up and China will step into the vacuum.
Hard to overstate how far we’ve screwed ourselves. The 21st century already belonged to China, but we simply handed to them in less than a year.
This is what people voted for. Or abstained from voting, knowing this would happen if he was elected, and pretending it wouldn’t. That people would starve and get terrible diseases that spread worldwide. That their neighbors and their own families would starve. That children in their communities, families that even looked like them, would get seized by masked agents, split up, taken away. Treated like animals.
The banality of evil is shocking, and yet few will care. This will all be swept under the rug and forgotten about, and average people will pretend they didn’t vote for him, or voted for her, out of embarrassment someday.
The banality of evil is shocking, and yet few will care. This will all be swept under the rug and forgotten about, and average people will pretend they didn’t vote for him, or voted for her, out of embarrassment someday.
Yes, just like Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam? It’s almost like crimes against humanity need some serious consequences to serve as a warning for future leaders?
But yankistanis really lack self awareness until it affects them.
Can’t say that the next dark age was accidental.
