How Mike Pence's Office Meddled in Foreign Aid to Reroute Money to Favored Christian Groups

[mucifer]

Last November, a top Trump appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development wrote a candid email to colleagues about pressure from the White House to reroute Middle East aid to religious minorities, particularly Christian groups.

“Sometimes this decision will be made for us by the White House (see… Iraq! And, increasingly, Syria),” said Hallam Ferguson, a senior official in USAID’s Middle East bureau, in an email seen by ProPublica. “We need to stay ahead of this curve everywhere lest our interventions be dictated to us.”

The email underscored what had become a stark reality under the Trump White House. Decisions about U.S. aid are often no longer being governed by career professionals applying a rigorous review of applicants and their capabilities. Over the last two years, political pressure, particularly from the office of Vice President Mike Pence, had seeped into aid deliberations and convinced key decision-makers that unless they fell in line, their jobs could be at stake.

One of the groups selected for the newest awards has no full-time paid staff, no experience with government grants and a financial tie that would typically raise questions in an intense competition for limited funds. The second organization received its first USAID direct grant after extensive public comments by its leader and allies highlighting what they described as a lack of U.S. assistance to Christians. The two groups — a charity that primarily serves Christian Iraqis and a Catholic university — were not originally listed as front-runners, according to a document seen by ProPublica.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mike-pences-office-meddled-in-foreign-aid-to-reroute-money-to-favored-christian-groups

[Lars39]

1. Subsidizing US religious groups in the area

is the right wing religious goal. The Great Commission and End Times crap.

I wonder how much the Southern Baptists might receive? Got a Southern Baptist BIL who travels all over to help establish and oversee sb churches. Went to one of the ‘Stans (not sure which one) a while back.
His next trip is Afghanistan.
Like Afghanistan doesn’t have enough problems, without the Southern Baptist jumping in.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. we gotta end this attempt to establish an authoritarian theocracy

[BSdetect]

3. religious idiots are subsidised by governments - how is that separation of church and state?