President Joe Biden’s choice of Samantha Power as head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) got the Irish media into a flurry of excitement.
The Irish Times reported that Power was born in Dublin and had “worked as an activist, journalist and author before joining the Obama administration,” where she was the US ambassador to the United Nations. From there on the Times dutifully quoted the propaganda provided to it, beginning with its headline, “Samantha Power chosen by Biden to lead top US development agency.”
But the Irish Times was not alone in describing USAID as a humanitarian development agency, now to be guided by the human-rights defender Samantha Power. The Irish Examiner has her as “international development aid boss” and head of the “agency that oversees US foreign humanitarian and development aid.”
The Irish Independent has exactly the same headline—“international development aid boss”—while the two papers agree with the provided text that she is “a world-renowned voice of conscience and moral clarity.”
RTE did not stray from the script either. “A crisis-tested public servant and diplomat,” it quoted from the exact same sources, “Ambassador Power has been a leader in marshalling the world to resolve long-running conflicts, respond to humanitarian emergencies, defend human dignity, and strengthen the rule of law and democracy.”
So far, so Irish media. But it seems there is one dissenting voice; unfortunately, it is not an Irish voice. That voice comes from RT—scarcely a hotbed of dissent but nonetheless offering a distinctly critical view on many issues. “Interventionist Samantha Power is latest pick to serve in Joe Biden administration as USAID head,” it says. It goes on: “Power is best known for her ‘humanitarian’ interventionism advocacy. As an aide at the Obama White House, she championed US intervention in Syria and Libya—where US-backed Islamist militants sought to overthrow secular governments—in the name of stopping ‘genocide’.”
Still, let’s give the last words (almost) to the heroine herself. “As a journalist, activist, and diplomat, I’ve seen the world-changing impact of USAID.” Indeed she has, and now she is going to oversee its continuing destructive force throughout the world. Just don’t expect to read about it in the Irish mouthpieces of US propaganda.
