- Alan Macleod: Creative Associates International (CAI): It’s Not Exactly the CIA, But Close Enough
- Alan Macleod: Creative Associates International (CAI): It’s Not Exactly the CIA, But Close Enough - sashimi August 14, 2021, 9:45 am
- It has always been thus since 1947 - Tomski August 14, 2021, 3:03 pm
Posted by sashimi
on August 14, 2021, 9:45 am
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13 August 2021 Lede: While mercenary armies like Blackwater have at least been subject to inquiry, making the company's name infamous around the world, Creative Associates International has largely flown under the radar - exactly where the organization's board wants it to be. (quote) CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND - You have likely not heard of them, but Creative Associates International (CAI) is one of the largest and most powerful non-governmental organizations operating anywhere in the world. A pillar of soft U.S. power, the group has been an architect in privatizing the Iraqi education system, designed messenger apps meant to overthrow the government of Cuba, served as a front group for the infamous Blackwater mercenary force (now rebranded as Academi), and liaised with Contra death squads in Nicaragua. As such, it has functioned as "both as an instrument of foreign policy and as a manifestation of a broader imperial project," in the words of Professor Kenneth Saltman of the University of Illinois, Chicago. A G.O. posing as an N.G.O. An ordinary person arriving at Creative Associates' website - festooned as it is with images of smiling African children, Asian kids being taught how to read and happy Latino farmers harvesting their fields - would likely conclude that the outfit is some sort of progressive non-profit charity tirelessly working to empower vulnerable people around the world. Yet subjecting the organization to a little more scrutiny, some red flags immediately begin to emerge. First is the indecipherable word-salad it uses when describing what it actually is in its "Us At A Glance" section. "Creative Associates International provides outstanding, on-the-ground development services and forges partnerships to deliver sustainable solutions to global challenges," it says, as if this is any sort of answer to the question "Who are you?" Continuing, it boasts that "Creative is recognized for its ability to quickly adapt and excel in conflict and post-conflict environments" (emphasis added) - a statement that sounds worryingly like one private mercenary armies use to advertise their services. In today's world, the United States government does not use only overtly violent methods (wars, invasions, coups, training of domestic death squads, etc.) to achieve regime change; it also uses so-called "soft power" techniques - the training of leaders, education, economic coercion, etc. - to maintain a hegemonic grip on the world. And Creative Associates International is a crucial part of that system. The company was founded in 1979 by M. Charito Kruvant, the scion of a wealthy landowning Bolivian family who fled the country after the progressive revolution there in 1952. Today, it has grown into a massive, for-profit behemoth working in at least 85 countries with a full-time staff of around a thousand (and countless more contractors). And while it is technically a private institution, the vast majority of its funding comes directly from Washington. Over the past 20 years, the government has given Creative Associates $1,998,138,515 in contracts, according to Tracey Eaton, a journalist who has studied the company's activities in Cuba. Of this, USAID has supplied over $1.8 billion. Furthermore, the organization's global advisory board underscores that this is not exactly some progressive arts charity, as its name and branding often imply. Of the seven members of its board, six are senior U.S. officials. These include Barack Obama's assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, a four-star general, and the ex-under secretary of state for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights. "Creative Associates is among the top U.S. government contractors entrusted with trying to help engineer political transitions. The company is part of that lucrative enterprise dubbed the 'Democracy Industrial Complex,'" Eaton told Mintpress. In a roundabout way, former head of USAID Andrew Natsios (another member of CAI's board) seemed to agree with Eaton. When the Trump administration was considering cutting the foreign aid budget, Natsios argued vehemently against it. "What you're basically doing is eviscerating the most important tool of American influence in the developing world, which is our development program," he said. "I don't think they understand what the role of USAID is, what USAID's mission directors are. USAID's mission directors are among the most influential foreigners in the country," he added, apparently confirming that the organization's focus is less helping others and more promoting Washington's interests through American social and economic power. "Even losing wars make money" Afghanistan is by far and away the country where Creative Associates' projects have secured the most funding. Combined with its Iraq enterprise, the company has raked in well over half a billion dollars worth of government contracts. "Even losing wars make money. If you go to the D.C. area, in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs, there are all these types of companies that exist because of the war. And the development industry got very wealthy off of it," said Matthew Hoh, a former Marine captain and Department of Defense and State Department official. "The whole grift of it was simply breathtaking," he added. In 2009, Hoh resigned his post in Afghanistan with the DoD in protest of the U.S.' escalation of war. Creative Associates has secured a number of lucrative contracts in the reconstruction of both countries, particularly with regard to their education systems - including building schools, writing and printing textbooks, training teachers, and administering and managing education systems. Hiring an American company to do this work rather than giving local governments the funding and power to plan their own futures fulfills a very important function, according to Saltman, who noted that this allows the U.S. to essentially retain complete control over Iraqi and Afghan society. Labelling it a classic example of "disaster capitalism," Saltman describes the remodeling of Iraqi society as "a radical free-market experiment bent on demolishing the public sector and shifting control of civil society nearly completely to the private sector," and "an attempt to essentially hand a nation over to corporations." Creative Associates schoolbooks in Afghanistan have purged any mention of the past few decades of Afghan history or the Taliban from its textbooks. "You can't buy that kind of thought control - unless you have a few hundred million," wrote one American educator. Saltman also noted that working in warzones necessitated a high degree of security, and that companies like CAI were likely giving tens of millions of dollars of their contracts straight over to private mercenary groups like Blackwater. Hoh was keen to stress that many people working at the lower levels of programs like these were well intentioned, but that as one went higher up the commitment to the benefit of others waned significantly. "Groups like CAI would do the [genuine] work but they would also be a front. It is a way for the CIA and other security services to get people into countries," he said. In 2009, it was reported that Creative Associates' headquarters in Peshawar, Pakistan, was being used as a front for Blackwater to stage military operations along the Afghan/Pakistan border. Creative Associates have also secured lucrative contracts to work in other war zones, such as Libya and Yemen. Cuba: rappers and regime change For years, Creative Associates International worked closely with the CIA and other government agencies, operating and overseeing a complex set of projects targeting Cuba, all with one specific goal: the overthrow of the Communist government (or "sociopolitical change tak[ing] place in Cuba," as its own documents preferred to describe its mission). Creative Associates' most infamous project was perhaps its creation of a Twitter-like app called Zunzuneo. Zunzuneo first operated as a very useful communication tool but, slowly, its creators injected it with regime-change messages, with the plan to eventually direct all users to attend demonstrations and foment a Caribbean color revolution. The app's user base grew quickly, attracting 55,000 people by 2012 - a huge number for a poor country with little internet access. The U.S. government attempted to hide its own role in the app's creation, secretly trying to convince Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to buy into the company as a front man. It is not clear what the outcome of these negotiations was. However, the Zunzuneo project was abruptly abandoned, leaving Cubans wondering why their service provider suddenly stopped working. Only two years later, through an investigation by the Associated Press, did the truth come out. (/quote) -- Cont'd at https://www.mintpressnews.com/creative-associates-international-cai-its-not-exactly-the-cia-but-close-enough/278207/ |
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