The Arab Agenda

Chapter 29

By now, it is no secret that the "Arab Spring" engineered. By the West, by selfish gains in the Middle East, there are many hands all battled to destroy and control.

Non-governmental organizations have been the tools of foreign policy, specifically with the United States. Instead of using purely military force, the US has now moved to using NGOs as tools in its foreign policy implementation. As Devon DB wrote

"Specifically the National Endowment for Democracy", Freedom House, and Amnesty International. National Endowment for Democracy

According to its website, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is "a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world," however this is sweet sounding description is actually quite far from the truth.

The history of the NED begins immediately after the Reagan administration. Due to the massive revelations concerning the CIA in the 1970s, specifically that they were involved in attempted assassinations of heads of state, the destabilization of foreign governments, and were illegally spying on the US citizens, this tarnished the image of the CIA and of the US government as a whole.

While there were many committees that were created during this time to investigate the CIA, the Church Committee (led by Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho) was of critical importance as its findings "demonstrated the need for perpetual surveillance of the intelligence community and resulted in the creation of the permanent Select Committee on Intelligence." 

The Select Committee on Intelligence's purpose was to oversee federal intelligence activities and while oversight and stability came in, it seemed to signal that the CIA's 'party' of assassination plots and coups were over. Yet, this was to continue, but in a new way: under the guise of a harmful NGO whose purpose was to promote democracy around the world- the National Endowment for Democracy.

The NED was meant to be a tool of US foreign policy from its outset.

Freedom House was originally founded in 1941 as a pro-democracy and pro-human rights organization. While this may have been true in the past, in the present day, Freedom House is quite involved in pushing US interests in global politics and its leaders have connections to rather unsavory organizations, such as current Executive Director David Kramer being a Senior Fellow to the Project for the New American Century, many of whose members are responsible for the current warmongering status of the US.

During the Bush administration, the President used Freedom House to support the so-called War on Terror. In a March 29, 2006 speech, President Bush stated that Freedom House "declared the year 2005 was one of the most successful years for freedom since the Freedom House began measuring world freedom more than 30 years ago" and that the US should not rest "until the promise of liberty reaches every people and every nation" because "In this new century, the advance of freedom is a vital element of our strategy to protect the American people, and to secure the peace for generations to come."

Later, it was revealed that Freedom House became more and more supportive of the Bush administration's policies because of the funding it was getting from the US government. According to its own internal report in 2007, the US government was providing some 66% of funding for the organization. This funding mainly came from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the US State Department, and the National Endowment for Democracy. Thus, we see not only the political connection of Freedom House to US government, but major financial connections as well.

It should be noted, however, that Freedom House was not alone in supporting the government. Under the Bush administration, the US government forced NGOs to become more compliant to their demands. In 2003, USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios stated in a speech given at a conference of NGOs that in Afghanistan the relationship between NGOs and USAID does affect the survival of the Karzai regime and that Afghans "believe [their life] is improving through mechanisms that have nothing to do with the U.S. government and nothing to do with the central government. That is a very serious problem."

On the situation in Iraq, Natsios stated that when it comes to NGO work in the country "proving results counts, but showing a connection between those results and U.S. policy counts as well."

NGOs were essentially told that they were tools of the US government and were being made part of the imperial apparatus.

Most recently, Freedom House was active in the Arab Spring, where they aided in the training and financing of civil society groups and individuals "including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen."

While the Endowment and Freedom House are being used as tools of US foreign policy that does not mean that the US government isn't looking for new tools, namely Amnesty International.

The human rights organization Amnesty International is the newest tool in the imperial toolbox of the American Empire. In January 2012, Suzanne Nossel was appointed the new Executive Director of Amnesty International by the group itself. Before coming to Amnesty, Nossel already had deep connections to the US government as she had "served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Organizations at the U.S. Department of State."

Nossel is known for coining the term 'smart power' which she defined as knowing that "US interests are furthered by enlisting others on behalf of U.S. goals, through alliances, international institutions, careful diplomacy, and the power of ideals."

While this definition may seem harmless, 'smart power' seems to be an enhanced version of Joseph Nye's 'soft power,' which itself is defined as "the ability to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than using the carrots and sticks of payment or coercion."

A possible example of this 'smart power' is the war in Libya, where the US used the UN as a means to get permission to engage in 'humanitarian intervention.'

Yet, even before Nossel was appointed to Amnesty, the group was unwittingly aiding in the media war against Syria. In a September 1, 2011 Democracy Now interview, Neil Sammonds, the researcher and one of the author's for Amnesty's report Deadly Detention: Deaths in Custody Amid Popular Protest in Syria, spoke about the manner in which the research was done for the report. He stated:

I've not been into Syria. Amnesty International has not been allowed into the country during these events, although we have requested it. So the research for this report was done mostly from London, but also from some work in neighboring countries and through communications with a large network of contacts and relatives of the families, and, you know, other sources.

How can one write a report with any amount of authority if their only sources are through second-hand sources that may or may not have a bias or an agenda to push? How can you write a report using sources whose information has no way of being verified? It is reminiscent of the media war against Gaddafi, where it was reported in the mainstream media that he was bombing his own people and had given Viagra to his soldiers as so they could rape women, but absolutely none of this was verified.

While NGOs can have a positive influence on society at large, one must be aware of their backgrounds, who is in charge of them, and from whom they are getting funding from because the nature of the NGO is changing, it is being more and more integrated into the imperial apparatus of domination and exploitation. NGOs are fast becoming the missionaries of empire.