Are Some Peaceful Foreign and Domestic Protest Groups Funded and Led by the CIA and Related Entities?

As soon as I saw the street demonstration in Iran on the news, I believed that it was funded and organized by the CIA. The protests and the national attention they received, along with the protesters' uncanny ability to get themselves into the international news day after day, and to use the Internet with such acumen in their first time out seemed askew to me.

I haven't read all of what's below so I can't vouch for its truthfulness, but I know a lot of people come to this Truth About Kos Blog to understand how elites manipulate and distort the news that we read and the opinions that we form.  This has been particularly true, in my opinion, of the non-violent activists' efforts to overthrow the Government of Iran.  It's my personal opinion based more on history than on knowledge of this particular situation, that the CIA and other associated organizations are behind the street protests that have been in the news over the last year against the government of Iran.

The protests reminded me of the wealthy Chileans banging in the streets on metal puts with metal spoons, trying to show that they, the bourgeoisie, were victims of the eventually-CIA-overthrown elected Government of Chile's Salvador Allende.  It's worth noting that his party made gains in the national Congress just before he was overthrown.

I'm not against non-violent spontaneous protests against dictatorial regimes.  I just believe it's relevant when and if these protests are organized and funded by the CIA and/or other associated groups, in the same way that the USA's TeaBaggers have been funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers and international newspaper publisher Rupert Murdoch.  I definitely believe that funding from these three particular billionaires is relevant to the work of the teabaggers.  Frank Rich at the Washington Post says,

There’s just one element missing from these snapshots of [Tee-Bagger] America’s ostensibly spontaneous and leaderless populist uprising: the sugar daddies who are bankrolling it, and have been doing so since well before the “death panel” warm-up acts of last summer. Three heavy hitters rule. You’ve heard of one of them, Rupert Murdoch. The other two, the brothers David and Charles Koch, are even richer, with a combined wealth exceeded only by that of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett among Americans.

The Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch must be very pleased today with their ability to influence elections across the United States by pouring unlimited and even anonymous monies into the American political system.

(Parenthetically, in gay lingo a "tea-bagger" is a man who likes to suck the scrotum of another man or men, so calling the Koch/Murdoch protesters "tea-baggers" is an insult both to gay men and to the bought and paid for right-wing "Tea Party" organizations.)

Below is an article that alleges that specific media are controlled by dubious interlocking right-wing and military directorates and that foreign "human rights groups" are sometimes funded and directed by the CIA.  If readers can prove something in the article below to be definitely true or definitely false, or certainly dubious or clearly probable, then I readers to go to the comment section below and provide links to the information that forms the basis of their opinions and facts.

I take no position on the following, except to say that proving or disproving the following may be interesting to our readers, based on the number of hits our Site Meter shows for phrases like "media manipulation" and "gatekeeper blogs".

Likewise, I take no position on this author's personal "credibility", because I deem that to be irrelevant to the question of whether the facts asserted are true of not.  Likewise, I wouldn't want anyone to say that an assertion is definitely true, simply because they read it at the Truth About Kos Blog.  I hope readers will read my citations (and those in the article below) and decide for themselves.

I must admit that I do not give credence to assertions that are made without evidence (links to credible sources or links that tie together people in groups), and I do read links to see if they prove the facts asserted: 

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Fake Peace Activism Tied To The Military and CIA

This won't be the most coherent entry. Apologies in advance. The following only recently came to my attention through reading an obscure blogger named Stu Piddy. He posted most of the following links and connections. There is a group of people and institutions who are posing as activists promoting velvet revolutions, those that are non-violent. On the surface it seems like a noble cause. But a closer look shows their intentions are actually insidious. A side story is that one of the founders of this cause has had glowing words for Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. Seeing how Markos has called the CIA a liberal institution he'd have no problem working for, there is further albeit circumstantial evidence that Moulitsas has been running a fifth column blog.

The following is by Socrates, who considers himself an Internet manipulation conspiracy sleuth. He says:

I have eight links to provide.

Link #1:
The Fund for Authentic Journalism

Narco News and Al Giordano run something called The School of Authentic Journalism. This is a donation page. Matching support of up to $20,000 per contribution is made by International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. This appears to be a classic example of right co-opting left. We can intuit this through taking a closer look at the ICNC.


Link #2:
The ICNC- Who We Are

JACK DUVALL, President
DR. PETER ACKERMAN, Founding Chair

The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is an independent, nonprofit educational foundation that develops and encourages the study and use of civilian-based, nonmilitary strategies to establish and defend human rights, democracy and justice worldwide. It accepts no grants, contracts or funding of any kind from any government or government-related organization or from any other foundation, corporation or institution. It is funded entirely by the family philanthropy of the founding chair.

Ok, Mr. Peter Ackerman is providing the entire funding. He must be filthy rich. Maybe we need to know who this guy is along with Jack Duvall. Let's start with Duvall.


Link #3:
Who the hell is Jack Duvall? by Jacob Levich

If anyone knows the real story behind Jack Duvall and his International
Center for Nonviolent Conflict, I'd be extremely grateful to hear it.

This guy, who purports to be some kind of pacifist, travels around the world with a dog-and-pony show centering on movies he's produced called "Bringing Down a Dictator" and "A Force More Powerful." His current position on Iraq, which he is selling heavily to college and university crowds, is that the peace movement has no right to oppose the invasion unless it offers an alternative way of getting rid of Saddam. (His suggestion -- don't laugh -- is that the Iraqi people should be encouraged to rise up in a Gandhi-style nonviolent mass movement.)

So far as I can tell, he intervenes whenever the US wants to bring down a government by military force, attempting to refocus any First World opposition away from opposing imperialism and toward "bringing down dictators by non violent means."

I suspect Jack Duvall is a fraud and possibly some kind of spook (see weird career details below) whose aim is to divide the antiwar movement.

The other day, unbidden, he sent a nasty little email screed to the mailing list of the campus antiwar group I belong to. It attacked ANSWER as a tool of Iraqi government propaganda. I won't bore you with further details of the ensuing email exchange, but suffice it to say he seems on the brink of achieving exactly what he desires -- driving a wedge between campus pacifists and leftists. The students who had seen his very slick presentation, it seems, were swept off their feet and reacted furiously to our attempts to criticize him.

Turns out his background is very odd for a "pacifist."

He's a TV producer and PR flack, and a member of the Washington establishment who:

* served in Air Force counterintelligence(!)
* worked in the Nixon White House
* wrote speeches for major-party Presidential campaigns, and
* raised money for warmaker Bill Clinton and Homeland Security architect Gary Hart.

Moreover, Duvall is currently a director of a consulting business called The Arlington Institute (http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/), which does weird "scenario building" for business and government clients. An excerpt from their site:

"Some of our clients want to know about the future of their marketplace, or a major contributing factor to their operating environment, like technology. Others are concerned about possible big surprise events - wild cards - that might blow in unexpectedly and fundamentally shift the status quo. Perhaps your concern is a geographic area - like Africa, or you are considering the purchase of a major asset and want to have a sense of what might change the present situation that makes that a good decision -- all of these are good candidates for scenario planning."

This suggests Arlington is in the business of helping its clients predict and defend against political events and popular movements that might harm their investments.

Most tellingly, here's a list of Arlington's clients:

U.S. Navy
U.S. Marine Corps
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Coast Guard
Office of the Secretary of Defense
Boeing
Honda
Andersen Consulting
New Directions for News
Project Voyager / OneCosmos


What kind of pacifist sits on the board of directors of a company that does consulting work for the Department of Defense and four branches of the US Military?

Again, if anyone knows the story behind this guy (or knows someone who does) please send word fast. If someone could get a reading from Dellinger that would be helpful -- I suspect his view would mean a lot to the pacifist students.

Jake

The CIA is mentioned in this blog entry's title. Here is that connection.

Link #4
A Force More Powerful:
Promoting 'Democracy' through Civil Disobedience by Michael Barker

In 1989, Dr Ackerman's coauthor Jack Duvall helped found another notable non-profit 'democracy promoting' research center, the Arlington Institute. Like many of the people involved in the previous 'democratic' groups the main person behind this venture, John L. Petersen, is a military man through and through, [17] and the center boasts amongst its cofounders former head of the CIA, James Woolsey. [18] Furthermore, the Arlington Institute's website notes that they specialize 'in thinking about global futures and trying to influence rapid, positive change', which ties in neatly with Jonathan Mowat's description of the Arlington Institute as strategists for the new postmodern coup. [19]

This blog was created in honour of Dave Weintraub who did a lot of good work in exposing Markos Moulitsas. Here is the Kos connection. Above Al Giordano of Narco News was mentioned. This is what he has had to say about the CIA loving founder of Daily Kos. I realise that this and other connections could be seen as guilt by association. But my thinking is that is a strawman argument. If we are what we eat, then we can also be said to be part and parcel of those we associate with. How does one separate Brad Friedman from the Speedway Bomber Brett Kimberlin? How can Michael Rivero separate himself from Curtis Maynard, Alex Jones and the Birdman? How can Patrick Minnis of NASA separate himself from the founder of Chemtrail Central? How can Tinoire of Progressive Independent separate herself from military intelligence? I could go on. But you get the point.

Link #5:
Kos And Alinsky And Election 2008 by Stephen C. Rose'

In a lengthy review of Taking On The System, coming out tomorrow, Al Giordano commends the new book's author, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder of the influential lefty blog Daily Kos, as "our era's very own Saul Alinsky" and calls the his work "the must-read political book of the year."

Let's get back to discussing the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. Why is this important? This is how Michael Barker puts it.


Link #6
Peace Activists, Criticism, and Nonviolent Imperialism

Paradoxically, one of the main problems of liberal foundations is not that they have colluded with the Central Intelligence Agency, or have and continue to support the work of elite planning groups like the Council on Foreign Relations, but rather that they support all manner of progressive causes -- as a quick perusal of their annual reports (pdf) will demonstrate. Most progressive groups only receive a small proportion of their funding from liberal foundations, but, as many of these groups are regularly on the brink of financial bankruptcy, the money that is distributed by liberal philanthropists is much sought after and has formidable (if rarely acknowledged) influence -- even when there are 'no strings attached' to the funding -- on the contours of civil society.

Earlier criticisms of liberal foundations appear to have simply washed off their backs. However, in the past few years a groundswell of new activists and researchers are openly questioning the antidemocratic nature of liberal philanthropy, so now is the perfect time for activists, all over the world, to really get to the bottom of the funding/activism nexus: only then can concerned people start to create and sustain grassroots movements that will be able to truly challenge capitalism and successfully promote peace.

Peter Ackerman, whose family philanthropy is behind the ICNC, is also the head of something called Freedom House. Stephen Gowans claims that it is a "CIA-interlocked think-tank." He cites Chomsky in the footnote as the basis for this factoid. The following is from an article concerning the recent democratic upheaval in Iran. Wow. There is so much to social reality. There are so many complexities. This is how propagandists get away with their shenanigans. Now I am unsure what has really been going on in Iran the last year. My gut told me a we the people campaign was taking ascent there. I saw those who belittled that movement as being a part of the Joos Own The World crowd. And of course many of those bloggers are part of that bullshite. However, the following by Gowans is certainly a big plate of food for thought. (excerpt)

Link #7:
War and Terror: The US' attempted color revolution in Iran

As the head of Freedom House, a CIA-interlocked think-tank [1] that promotes free markets, free enterprise and free trade, Peter Ackerman has been at the forefront of efforts to topple foreign governments that place more emphasis on promoting the welfare of their citizens (and often their own bourgeoisie) than providing export and investment opportunities to US corporations, banks, and investors.

An ex-Wall Street investment banker who was once junk bond trader Michael Milken's right-hand man, Ackerman's speciality these days is regime change civil disobedience –training activists in the use of civil disobedience destabilization techniques to bring down foreign governments.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Washington-Wall Street insiders' group that brings together corporate CEOs and lawyers, scholars, and government and military officials to recommend foreign policy positions to the US State Department, Ackerman also heads the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC). Working in parallel with billionaire financier George Soros' Open Society Institute, the ICNC deploys civil disobedience specialists to teach "activists how to agitate for change against" governments on Washington's regime change hit list, "going everywhere from Eastern Europe to train Belarusians to Turkey to coach Iranians." [2]

Ackerman and other civil disobedience imperialists, like Stephen Zunes, a self-styled progressive who acts as chief apologist for Ackerman among leftists who have romantic illusions about popular uprisings, [3] give their efforts to topple foreign governments the deceptively reassuring name "democracy promotion." Democracy promotion, a Bush administration official once said, is a rubric to get people to support regime change without saying the words. [4] Zunes has also sprung to the defense of Gene Sharp, the head of the Albert Einstein Institution, who advised right-wing Venezuelans on how to use civil disobedience to overthrow Hugo Chavez. [5]

And that will lead us to the final link in this humble blog entry. What is up with the US trying to destablise Chavez in Venezuela? Is it mostly about a new wave of fake peace activists (ever hear of Carol Rosin?) with various military and CIA ties whose main goals concern attempts at perverting democratic principles in sovereign nations? Does Kos' support of Ronald Reagan, the CIA, and the El Salvadoran oligarchy add up now or what?


Link #8:
US projects for Venezuela, by Eva Golinger

By the way, I will marry Eva Golinger, no questions asked. (excerpts)

NOVEMBER '07 - FEBRUARY '08

US PROJECTS FOR VENEZUELA

Another ‘Orange Revolution’ after the Ukrainian and Yugoslavian ones, a destabilization plan made in USA

In these days, Venezuela lives a big destabilization plan aiming to overthrow Chavez government and to pave the way for an international intervention. This plan follows a way already putted in practice on other countries like Yugoslavia to overthrow Milosevic, or Ukraine with the ‘Orange Revolution’. This plan was also used in Georgia for the ‘Rose Revolution’.

The text of this plan, written by Gene Sharp, promoter of the Albert Einstein Institution of the United States, promotes the utilization of the civil non-violent resistance to make radical political changes in a country. But Sharp’s plan contains almost 200 actions and strategies for the social, political and economic destabilization; ....


The pupil of Sharp, Ackerman, is now the president of Freedom House financed by the State Department to ‘promote democracy’ in the world by the American way; it has a seat in Venezuela from September 2004, after the revocation referendum against Chavez. Peter Ackerman took up his engagement replacing James Woosley, ex-director of CIA representing the US intelligence and security forces. Also Ackerman is a promoter of the International Centre for Non-Violent Conflict, organization that produced documentaries like ‘Bringing down a dictator’, ‘Orange Revolution’ and books like ‘Strategic Nonviolent Conflict’ and ‘A Force More Powerful’.....

These US organizations, with the Freedom House, its centre of Venezuela and the funds of the State Department, are working for a new ‘coloured revolution’. This last week was the proof that this plan is in progress. Groups like ORVEX (organization of Venezuelan self-exiles in USA), Ofensiva Ciudadana and the Comando de Resistencia Nacional are trying to put in practice the ‘Gene Sharp’ plan to create chaos and insecurity in the country, causing repression to promote the international intervention. With their ‘guarimbas’ actions (sabotages, provocations of groups of people that make blocks and clashes with the police), their violence in the streets (1) and the utilization of the young Venezuelan people faces, they manipulate the world public opinion, obtaining the effect that multilateral organisms, like OAS (Organization of American States), European Community, US government or international associations for the human rights, are making critical statements about the Venezuelan government and support the destabilizing groups.

Though they didn’t carry out their objectives, the proofs show that they will keep on applying these strategies to obtain international support and the power to attack once again the Venezuelan democracy and the welfare of the people. Put an end to the actions of groups like Freedom House and the International Republican Institute would be the right way to defend the nation. These organizations are used by the State Department and CIA and are working freely in Venezuela.

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