My latest from WND -- S.P.
My latest from WND -- S.P.
While the flow of billions of America taxpayer dollars to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has slowed during President Obama’s second term, his administration nonetheless will put $140 million into a project to figure out how to help “increase stability, democracy, and prosperity for the men and women” of that nation.
Private contractors will reap the windfall of an aid-effectiveness assessment known as the Performance Management Support, or PERFORM, initiative, which simultaneously seeks to determine whether Obama has accomplished anything thus far in Pakistan.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is tasked with conducting the PERFORM endeavor, for which contractors will provide “performance-monitoring support” of existing assistance programs.
The step comports with existing USAID policy stemming from requirements in the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 that the agency determine if government clients are effectively and efficiently carrying out their contractual obligations.
USAID/Pakistan currently maintains in-house staff to monitor the program effectiveness, particularly in high-threat and security restricted areas such as Karachi, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
According to the project Statement of Work, for the agency employees to satisfy their contractor-oversight responsibilities, additional contractors are needed to obtain “performance monitoring data.” The aim of the five-year, $140 million PERFORM initiative, therefore, is to obtain that data.
USAID then will use the information to identify existing program problems and to devise project improvements and adaptations. It also will leverage the data “to inform new project designs.”
The agency separately is evaluating the effectiveness of “highly specialized management information system and geospatial information system,” or MIS/GIS, services that a contractor is providing to USAID/Pakistan.
The MIS/GIS initiative will help the agency to track more closely 90 active contracts – valued at more than $1.9 billion – that USAID/Pakistan currently manages.
Management Services International received a six-month, non-competitive contract extension to perform the work, raising the contract ceiling from $11.7 million to $23.7 million.
The administration’s FY 2015 budget request for Pakistan aid is $881.8 million – significantly less than the nearly $2.4 billion sought and congressionally appropriated in FY 2011.
Peace and Security operations comprise $399.2 million of the FY 2015 total, with the remainder slated for Economic Development ($276 million); Health ($80 million); Democracy, Human Rights and Government ($76.6 million); and Education and Social Services ($50 million).
Included in the category of Peace and Security operations is State Department training through its Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program, or ATA. As U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's Steve Peacock recently discovered, the State Department purchased hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives and thousands of containers of liquid explosives, which it claimed it would use in the training of ATA partner nations such as Pakistan.
It is unclear, however, which assistance category applies to the administration’s production of a Pakistani-themed video depicting national icon Uncle Sam as a bloodthirsty cannibal.
Similarly, an Obama plan to change Pakistan’s culturally embedded mistreatment of women and girls might fall under several budget categories.
Other recently launched USAID/Pakistan endeavors include the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governance Project, a four-year $24 million program that seeks to improve the ability of that provincial government to provide public services to its citizens.
The Commercial Agriculture Project, which likewise is a four-year $24 million program, will help “improve the ability of Pakistan’s agriculture and livestock sectors to meet both international and domestic demand.”
USAID/Pakistan also recently revealed that it will spend about $17 million to perform an “environmental and social impact assessment” of the proposed Diamer Bhasha Dam Project.
The official justification for U.S. assistance to Pakistan focuses on the pursuit of “robust continued security and civilian assistance that contributes to a more secure, stable, tolerant, democratic, and prosperous Pakistan.”
The broader aim is to “make the region safer and also contribute to U.S. security.”
This article originally was published June 8 via WND.com. Under agreement with WND, rights have reverted back to its author, Steve Peacock.
My latest article gets top-of-the-page visibility. See “Kaboom! State Dept. finally gives explosive answer” via WND. -- S.P.
The State Department bureau tasked with secretly sending to embassies plastic and liquid explosives operates under the guidance of Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy, whom a congressional panel last year separately found to be largely responsible for security lapses in Benghazi, WND has learned.
A series of WND articles recently exposed the purchase and international transport of many hundreds of pounds of plastic, sheet and linear explosives along with thousands of containers of high-energy liquid explosives.
Weeks after a State official laughed in response to WND’s inquiry, the department belatedly reacted to a follow-up request for information about how, where and by whom the blasting equipment will be used.
Read more at WND.com...
Extraordinary thanks to Michael David McGuire, host of the New York-based NightTalker Radio Show, for reaching out to me to provide a platform to discuss my recent reports on U.S. Department of State's purchase of thousands of containers of liquid explosives and many hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives and other blasting equipment. Equally important is the chance to highlight the subsequent government silence and mainstream media avoidance of the issue.
Tune into this report right now via NightTalker Radio Show.
Also see "Continued Silence from the U.S. State Dept. on Explosives Buy" for summaries of and links to my series of WND articles on this "explosive" matter.
Following three reports on the U.S. Department of State's purchase of thousands of containers of liquid explosives and many hundreds of pounds of plastic explosives, the State Dept. remains silent on the matter. Today I sent yet another request to its Press Office, advising the department that the door remains wide open to explain whether the federal government' s global diplomatic arm has legitimate uses for the blasting equipment.
There very well may be such uses. And although I don't buy into the abounding theories that the Obama administration is going to set up a disaster and corral people into FEMA camps, the fact that State will not enlighten the American people -- combined with the fact that major media as a follow-up thus far failed to press the government for answers -- is troubling, to say the least.
I will be discussing my findings on a New York-based radio program; more on that soon.
In the meantime, please check out my recent articles on this "explosive" issue:
-- S.P.
In the latest addition to the Obama administration’s growing aid-to-Kenya portfolio, the U.S. will help subsidize a nationwide citizen-health assessment in every Kenyan county without exception.
While the estimated project cost remains undisclosed, a separate Kenya-based trade-promotion project unveiled late last week came with an additional $70 million price tag.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, with U.S. taxpayer help, will implement the 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, or KDHS.
Kenya will coordinate the efforts with United Nations agencies, the U.S. government and “other partners.” The U.S. will fund a KDHS requirement to deploy contractor caravans across the entirety of this East African nation of 45 million.
Read more at WND.com...
What a thrill it was to read yesterday's editorial by Joseph Farah, founder, editor and CEO of WND, on his publication's extensive coverage of Obama admininistration assistance to Kenya -- Barack Obama's "home country," as the First Lady once referred to the African nation.
I have been blessed with the chance to write the bulk of those articles via WND.com.
Mr. Farah clearly has recognized the value of this unparalleled coverage of "rapidly and exponentially" increasing USAID programs in Kenya.
Indeed, it was precisely U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor's coverage of other U.S. government foreign-assistance initiatives that caught the attention of Mr. Farah when I first launched the Monitor in 2011, consequently leading to an ongoing publishing relationship with the WND organization.
It is with much gratitude to Mr. Farah -- as well as to News Editor Bob Unruh -- for the chance to regularly contribute to WND, which has the guts to take on issues the mainstream media often does not have the wherewithal or the chutzpah to pursue.
Not Farewell, But See You Elsewhere; U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor to be Archived
While my creation of U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has been a fruitful venture -- both product-wise and profit-wise -- I believe it is time to shift my energies toward other initiatives.
My reporting here immediately had been noticed by WND.com, and since then I have increasingly devoted greater efforts selling original articles to that organization than writing new ones for the Monitor. Indeed, I would like to draw your attention to my WND author page, where the bulk of my recent and future reporting can and will be found.
The Monitor certainly has proved to be a positive experience in digital, independent reporting, as had been its predecessor site, The Peacock Report (which is archived here).
From its inception three years ago, the Monitor has produced hundreds of research-based articles ahead of the competition, at times beating even major media organizations; indeed, news giant CNN -- specifically White House Correspondent Brianna Keilar via CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer -- blatantly stole information from this site (see "CNN Rips Off U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor Story on Biden's Plush Parisian Jaunt.")
I must have been doing something right, eh?
Likewise, my articles have been linked to by sources such as Drudge Report, which sparked nearly 90,000 page views in several days in response to "Kenya Sees Spike in Obama Administration-Funded Projects."
Cryptome.org likewise drove thousands of visitors here by linking to my numerous articles on matters specific to national security and U.S.-funded foreign operations.
Similary, bestselling author Andrew McCarthy used (and credited) Monitor material in a piece he wrote for National Review online.
There have been many other notable successes and forms of recognition by outside sources, but it's time I get down to business with other creative ventures (besides, I still have to bag about a ton of leaves in my backyard that I did not get to last autumn).
Most importantly, I need to finish writing Play Dead, Roll Over, my book-length memoir-in-progress. For a taste of the creative nonfiction work, check out an excerpt via Gravel: A Literary Journal and Crime Factory #15. If you are interested in these and other literary (and largely non-political) pursuits, follow me on Twitter via @sgpeacock.
While I will continue to make the Monitor publicly accessible, for now -- if not permanently -- I will cease posting new articles here.
Stay in touch. Like I said, I expect to continue contributing to WND, so check out my author page for updates.
For those interested in my political writing and in conservative/libertarian issues in general, please follow me on Twitter via @tradeaidmonitor.
In addition to my various writing pursuits, I am likewise pursuing voice-over, acting, and emcee/ring announcer opportunities. I have started to update my YouTube page for that reason, though admittedly it is a work-in-progress.
Best wishes, and thank you all for your support and interest. -- Steve Peacock