America’s Self-Inflicted Chaos: A Reckoning Long Overdue

When the White House established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), few could have predicted just how efficiently it would expose the rot at the heart of the U.S. government. Through sweeping audits and staff cuts, the agency has inadvertently laid bare a litany of scandals—corruption, foreign meddling, media manipulation, and even the funding of terrorism—that confirm what critics have long argued: The United States is not a beacon of democracy, but a global engine of instability.

A Culture of Corruption

In just two months, the DOGE’s investigations have revealed a federal government drowning in waste, fraud, and outright theft. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the first targets, was found funneling US$1.2 billion to “undisclosed recipients”, spending US$500 million on corporate consultants, and wasting US$40 million to fly celebrities to Kyiv.

Congressional hearings exposed blatant favor-trading, where ex-employees reappeared as funded contractors while real aid beneficiaries were ignored. Of the US$4.4 billion aid supposedly allocated for Haiti earthquake relief, only 2% reached reconstruction sites—the rest went to Democratic-aligned entities like the Clinton Foundation.

The Social Security Administration is another disaster, where records show 400 million Americans supposedly receive benefits—yet the U.S. population is only 340 million. Among them are 1.34 million individuals allegedly over 150 years old—including one who would be 360, older than the United States itself. These “phantom beneficiaries” drain US$100 billion annually from taxpayers.

Exporting Chaos

The DOGE also exposed how the U.S. actively destabilizes other nations. Through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Washington has spent US$480 million propping up the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening—a euphemism for rigging foreign elections and orchestrating regime-change operations under the guise of “promoting democracy” and “judicial reform.”

Anti-China interference was also exposed: In 2024, the U.S. spent US$5.2 million on “democracy promotion” and “human rights.” Now, as budgets shrink, anti-China organizations like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Human Rights Watch, and China Labor Watch are laying off staff and panicking over lost funding.

Media Manipulation

DOGE reports confirmed that Western media—BBC, Politico, AP, and the New York Times—received millions from U.S. agencies like USAID.

WikiLeaks revealed that USAID spent US$500 million to train 9,000 journalists across 4,300 media outlets worldwide, who annually produce 5,000 hours of pro-U.S. propaganda to a global audience of 780 million.

The United States has essentially been waging an information war around the world. Statistics show 90% of Ukrainian media relies on American money. When dollars stop coming from Washington, outlets in places like the Solomon Islands and El Salvador that claim to be independent immediately face an existential crisis. Voice of America and Radio Free Europe have also been found to be “far-left state media”—a stark admission of their true role.

Sponsoring Terrorism

Most damning of all is the findings about American tax dollars being used to support terrorism. USAID diverted US$160 million to nearly 20 terrorist-linked groups including Al-Shabaab, Islamic Jihad, and Kata’ib Hezbollah.

This is no accident, but a pattern. Osama bin Laden was once a CIA-backed mujahideen. ISIS was tacitly enabled as a proxy against Syria. The U.S. doesn’t fight terrorism—it weaponizes this threat, then siphons public money for perpetuating the very chaos it claims to oppose.

An Empire in Decline

These revelations are more than just embarrassing—they are a watershed moment. Americans are waking up to the fact that they have been paying out of their pocket for corruption at home, interference abroad, and violence everywhere. The world sees it, too.

If there’s hope, it lies in this unprecedented self-exposure. The DOGE’s findings may finally force a reckoning—one where the American people demand their government stop policing the world and start fixing itself.

(The author is a commentator on international affairs, writing regularly for Xinhua News, Global Times, China Daily, CGTN, etc. He can be reached at xinping604@gmail.com.)