From the movies and to Jenny O’Connor’s “…Guise of Innocence”
Editing, brief comment
By Carolyn Bennett
By Carolyn Bennett
“I’m C [BLINKING] I A, Bobby.
Officially I don’t exist, I can’t. My profit’s my reward— for selfless service
to god and country.” [Before drilling 7 gun shots into two gagged, tied up
internal affairs FBI officials]
“How are we going to keep the military industrial complex chugging forward without clear-cut … pit-faced scum-sucking evil breathing down out neck — threatening our very shores; and my job is to make sure the other side keeps on fighting, whatever side … whatever side we’re officially not on this year.”……
“…It’s all a bunch of bureaucratic bull…; they have an agenda, I have
an agenda… It works …the CIA way. ….”
“White Sands” [not what they seem] is a 1992 Roger Donaldson-directed
film starring Willem Dafoe as New Mexico Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal; Mary
Elizabeth Mastrantonio as a well-heeled [“NGO/nonprofit”-type] finder of money
for nefarious “causes” for her kickback on front or back end, whichever is more
profitable; and Mickey Rourke as the “I’m
C [BLINKING] I A…” arms trafficking
mayhem-making murderer for profit.
Life imitating art imitating life
From Jenny O’Connor’s early April article “‘NGO’: The Guise of
Innocence”
“In December 2011, Egyptian prosecutors and police raided 17 offices of
10 groups identifying themselves as ‘pro-democracy’ NGOs, including four United
States-based agencies.
“Forty-three people, including 16 U.S. citizens, have been accused of
failing to register with the government and financing the April 6, 2011,
protest movement with illicit funds in a manner that detracts from the
sovereignty of the Egyptian state.”
U.S. Exporting democracy, the rule of law
In response, U.S. government “has applied massive pressure on Egypt to
drop the case.” The U.S. has sent “high-level officials to Cairo for intense
discussions and threatened to cut off up to $1.3 billion in military aid and
$250 million in economic assistance if the U.S. citizens [are] tried.”
Ending her article “‘NGO’: The Guise of Innocence,” Jenny O’Connor
writes, “It is clear that NDI (U.S. Democrats), IRI (U.S. Republicans) and
Freedom House (another nasty lot) were training and funding the youth movement
in Egypt while the U.S. Government and its Cairo Embassy were fully aware that
the youth movement aimed to remove Mubarak from power.
“Critics claim that the defendants [NGOs not) are being charged
with a law that is a ‘relic of the Mubarak era.’” However, an apt reply might
be, she writes —
In what country does
the law permit foreign governments to fund and train opposition groups with a
stated goal of regime change?
It is common sense
to assume that if China or Cuba were funding similar oppositionist groups in
the U.S., those involved would be facing far harsher sentences than the 43 now
standing trial in Egypt.
Yet they continue to
hide behind the tattered guise of being ‘NGO’ employees, claiming independence
because their U.S. government funding is channeled [laundered?] through the National Endowment for Democracy.
“The term “NGO” is used deliberately,” she says, “to create an illusion
of innocent philanthropic activity.
“In this case the Egyptian government is investigating the operations
of organizations in receipt of U.S. (State) funding which have a proven history
of covertly funding political parties, influencing elections and aiding coups
against both autocratic and democratic non-compliant and left-leaning
governments around the world.
“Yet one mention of the Egyptian government’s raids on the offices of
so-called ‘pro-democracy NGOs’ in Cairo was enough to spark an international
outcry.” However, the Western press has “[failed] to investigate at all the
history of the organizations involved or the validity of the charges being
brought against them.”
NGOs — Not what they seem
The accused are state-sponsored institutions, Connor continues, which cannot
be accurately defined NGO (Nongovernmental organization). The accused —
Freedom House
Long criticized for its right-wing bias, favoring free markets and U.S.
foreign policy interests when assigning ‘scores’ in “civil liberty” and “political
freedom” to countries around the world, Freedom House claims to be independent
but regularly receives the majority of its funding from the U.S.
government-funded NED (below).
In addition to criticisms of hidden agendas and bias, Freedom House has
also been accused of running programs of regime destabilization in U.S.
‘enemy states’. A 1996 Financial Times
article revealed that Freedom House was one of several organizations selected
by the U.S. State Department to receive funding for ‘clandestine activities’
inside Iran including training and funding groups seeking regime change, an act
that received criticism from Iranian grass roots pro-democracy groups.
NDI
National Democratic Institute (NDI) is chaired by Madeline Albright
representing the U.S. Democratic Party
IRI
International Republican Institute (IRI) is chaired by Senator John
McCain representing the U.S. Republican Party
Dubbed the “most nefarious” of NGOs that aren’t NGOs are IRI and
NDI who “receive NED grants ‘for
work abroad to foster the growth of political parties, electoral processes and
institutions, free trade unions, and free markets and business organizations.’”
NDI and IRI together with the Center for International Private
Enterprise (representing U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and the Solidarity Centre
(representing the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial
Organizations, AFL-CIO, make up the four ‘core institutions’ of the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED).
NED
To get around or avoid the “political stigma associated with covert CIA
funding” surrounding U.S. involvement “in numerous controversies relating to
covert military operations and the training and funding of paramilitaries and
death squads in Central and South America,” O’Connor recounts the history, NED
was formed “to create an open and legal avenue [impunity] for the U.S. Government to channel funds to opposition
groups against unfavorable regimes around the world.”
Much of what NED does today was reportedly done covertly by the CIA
(U.S. Central Intelligence Agency) 25 years ago.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is “a non-profit,
grant-making institution” (formed in 1983) that receives more than 90 Percent
of its annual budget from the United States government. It may be likened to a
parent company or co-parent with or department of the U.S. government, even Mob boss [my words, not O’Connor’s].
On NED’s Board of Directors sits “a collection of corporate lobbyists,
advisors and consultants, former U.S congressmen, senators, ambassadors and
military and senior fellows of think tanks chaired by former Democratic
Representative, now CEO of his own corporate consultancy and lobbying firm,
Richard Gephardt. Among the directors are four of the founding members of
ultra-conservative think tank Project for a New American Century; a former U.S.
ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan and the UN who now heading his own
international corporate advisory firm with clients wishing to do business in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a former White
House deputy chief of staff now chairman and CEO of his own corporate lobbying
firm and member also of the Board of Governors of the American Stock Exchange
and NASD and the boards of conglomerates Boeing Company, ConocoPhilips and
Fannie Mae among others.
Union members and labor activists for years have protested and
campaigned against NED (not unlike demonstrations against the sinister School
of the Americas), demanding that the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center break all ties
to the NED. A March 6 demonstration organized by American civil society
organizations at the Washington D.C., offices of NED demanded
NO ATTACKS ON
DEMOCRACY ANYWHERE!
CLOSE THE NED.
In tandem with NED
CIA operates with deadly effect, the U.S. obstructs justice
- Reports reveal that since 2004 up to 2,283 people have been killed by United States unmanned aircraft (or drones) in Pakistan. In the past two years under the Barack Obama government, the numbers have rapidly escalated, leaving as many as 730 “wholly innocent” people dead.
- An Islamabad court is scheduled to hand down judgment (Tuesday April 17, 2012) in a case of Pakistani police “‘[failing] to investigate two reports by Pakistani citizens on the murder of innocent civilians by CIA unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).’
“Pakistani Kareem Khan assisted by lawyer Shahzad Akbar of Islamabad’s
Foundation for Fundamental Rights filed a judicial review of his local police
force after they failed to act on his urgent FIR (First Information Report) of
the murder of his son and brother in his ancestral village Machi Khel, North
Waziristan. Judge Basharat Mufti reserved his decision to be announced tomorrow
in the Court of Additional District and Sessions Judge (Islamabad).”
Obstruction
- “The U.S. government has failed to grant a visa to Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar, effectively blocking his appearance at an April 28, 2012, International Drone Summit in Washington D.C.
Sources and notes
Transcription from ending scenes of “White Sands” film, a speech by
Gorman Lennox (Mickey Rourke)
“White Sands” [not what it
seems] is a 1992 Roger Donaldson-directed film starring Willem Dafoe as New
Mexico Deputy Sheriff Ray Dolezal; Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as well-heeled
finder of money for any “causes” for her kickback on front or back end,
whichever is more profitable; and Mickey Rourke as “I’m C [BLINKING] I A…” arms
trafficker mayhem-maker, murdered for profit
White Sands at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105813/; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sands_(film)
Not what it seems
Gypsum desert
The white sands in this desert located in Tularosa Basin New Mexico are
composed of gypsum and calcium sulfate (not quartz like most desert sands). Because
of the high rate of evaporation of surface moisture and that sands reflect
rather than absorb sunrays, these desert sands are cool to the touch.
Above sea level at 1185 meters are approximately 442 total square
kilometers of dune fields, the world’s largest surface deposit of gypsum. Easily
dissolvable in water and rarely seen on the surface, Gypsum is one of the most
common mineral compounds found on Earth. Originating 100 million (est.) years
ago, this desert was covered by a shallow sea whose waters receded leaving
saltwater lakes then evaporated by the sun. Together with the salt, gypsum was
laid down in thick deposits on the old seabed.
“‘NGO’: The Guise of Innocence” (Jenny O'Connor), April 7, 2012, http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/ngo-the-guise-of-innocence/
Article posted Saturday, April 7, 2012 and filed under Bolivia, Costa Rica,
Egypt, Haiti, Honduras, NGOs, Nicaragua, Venezuela.
Jenny O’Connor is a graduate of International Relations from Dublin City University and Communications Volunteer with the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland. Her website: http://jennyoconnor.wordpress.com/
http://jennyoconnor.wordpress.com/about/
CIA
“Pakistani lawyer representing victims of drone strikes prevented from
speaking in U.S.,” April 11, 2012, http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/drone_conference_Shahzad_Akbar/
“Judgment due tomorrow in CIA drones murder case in Pakistan,” April
16, 2012,
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2012_04_16_judgment_CIA_drone_murder_case_Pakistan/
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/investigations/drones/
REPRIEVE
Reprieve uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners. Working
on the frontline, from death row to Guantánamo Bay, Reprieve investigates, litigates
and educates, providing legal support to prisoners unable to pay for it.
Reprieve promotes the rule of law around the world and secures each
person’s right to a fair trial. In doing so, they save lives. Reprieve prioritizes
the cases of prisoners accused of the most extreme crimes, such as acts of
murder or terrorism, as it is in such cases that human rights are most likely
to be jettisoned or eroded. Reprieve focuses on cases involving the world’s
most powerful governments, especially those that should be upholding the
highest standards when it comes to fair trials. http://www.reprieve.org.uk/about/
Images
Egypt's NGO Suspicions, Late last month, Egyptian security forces
raided offices of Egyptian and ...
nationalinterest.org
dollar380.jpg
firstpost.com
380 × 285 - ... been turning up the heat on foreign-funded NGOs and the
Prime
With the proliferation of NGOs (Non Government Organisations), ...
twawki.com
anti_ngo_protest.jpg
jdslanka.org
650 × 330 - By Umar Cheema | The News
White Sands moviesoftheday.com5158588-word-cloud-concept-illustration-of-cia-central-intelligence-agency
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