Trojan Horse: Wesley Clark's National Endowment for Democracy

[stickdog]

Excerpted from William Blum's 2000 book Rogue State: Guide to the World's Only Superpower

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/TrojanHorse_RS.html

Trojan Horse: The National Endowment for Democracy

How many Americans could identify the National Endowment for Democracy? An organization which often does exactly the opposite of what its name implies. The NED was set up in the early 1980s under President Reagan in the wake of all the negative revelations about the CIA in the second half of the 1970s. The latter was a remarkable period. Spurred by Watergate-the Church Committee of the Senate, the Pike Committee of the House and the Rockefeller Commission, created by the president, were all busy investigating the CIA. Seemingly every other day there was a new headline about the discovery of some awful thing, even criminal conduct, the CIA had been mixed up in for years. The Agency was getting an exceedingly bad name, and it was causing the powers-that-be much embarrassment.

Something had to be done. What was done was not to stop doing these awful things. Of course not. What was done was to shift many of these awful things to a new organization, with a nice sounding name-the National Endowment for Democracy. The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities.

It was a masterpiece. Of politics, of public relations and of cynicism. Thus it was that in 1983, the National Endowment for Democracy was set up to "support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts". Notice the "nongovernmental"-part of the image, part of the myth. In actuality, virtually every penny of its funding comes from the federal government, as is clearly indicated in the financial statement in each issue of its annual report. NED likes to refer to itself as an NGO (non-governmental organization) because this helps to maintain a certain credibility abroad that an official US government agency might not have. But NGO is the wrong category. NED is a GO.

Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through the NED.


************************


David Corn on The National Endowment For Democracy from 9/2002:

Our Gang in Venezuela?
by David Corn

In the weeks before the April 12-13 coup in Venezuela, Asociacion Civil Consorcio Justicia, a legal rights outfit, was planning an April 10 conference to promote democracy in that country. At the time, Venezuela was undergoing severe political strife. Business groups and labor unions were bitterly squaring off against President Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected strongman/populist. Using an $84,000 grant from the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental foundation funded by Congress, Consorcio Justicia was supposed to bring together political parties, unions, business associations, religious groups and academicians to discuss "protecting fundamental political rights," as an NED document put it. In a proposed agenda Consorcio Justicia listed as one of the main speakers Pedro Carmona, president of Fedecamaras, a leading Venezuelan business group. But when the coup came, Carmona was handpicked by the plotters to head a government established in violation of the Constitution. Then he signed a decree suspending the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. Carmona, it turns out, was hardly interested in safeguarding "fundamental political rights."

(snip)

Created by President Ronald Reagan and Congress in 1983, NED was designed to run a parallel foreign policy for the United States, backing and assisting entities that Washington might not be able to officially endorse--say, an opposition party challenging a government with which the United States maintained diplomatic relations. In a way, NED took public some of the covert political activity the CIA had previously mounted. The endowment--which devotes much of its budget to funding the foreign policy arms of the Democratic and Republican parties, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO (its core grantees)--has been involved in both questionable and praiseworthy projects. It awarded a large grant to a student group linked to an outlawed extreme-right paramilitary outfit in France, helped finance the development of conservative parties in countries where democracy was doing just fine and played a heavy-handed role in Nicaragua's 1990 elections. In the late 1980s it aided the pro-democracy opposition in Chile and antiapartheid organizations in South Africa. But even if its programs have indeed enhanced democracy on occasion, NED overall has long been problematic, as it has handed taxpayer dollars to private groups (such as the two major parties) to finance their overseas initiatives and has conducted controversial programs that could be viewed abroad as actions of the US government. What might the reaction be here, if the British government funded an effort to improve the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote operation in Florida?

Which brings us back to Venezuela--where the US Embassy was compelled after the coup to declare as a "myth" the notion that "the US government, through organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, financed coup efforts." For months before the coup, Americans--including US government officials and officials of NED and its core grantees--were in contact with Venezuelans and political parties that became involved or possibly involved with the coup. This has provided Latin Americans cause to wonder if the United States is continuing its tradition of underhandedly meddling in the affairs of its neighbors to the south.

(snip)

Consider some NED activities there. When Consorcio Justicia began to assemble the pro-democracy conferences, it approached the two main opponents of Chavez--Carmona and his Fedecamaras, as well as the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), the leading anti-Chavez labor union--according to documents obtained from NED under a Freedom of Information Act request. Christopher Sabatini, NED's senior program officer for Latin America, says, "The idea was that the conferences (which were to include Chavistas) would be able to define a consensus-based policy agenda" for the entire country. But certainly NED's core grantees were trying to beef up Venezuelan organizations challenging Chavez. The AFL-CIO, for example, was working (seemingly laudably) to bolster and democratize the CTV, which Chavez had been trying to intimidate and infiltrate. The International Republican Institute was training several parties that opposed Chavez. At one session, Mike Collins, a former GOP press secretary, taught party leaders how to mount photo-ops; at another he suggested to Caracas Mayor Alfredo Peña, a prominent Chavez foe, how he "could soften his aggressive image in order to appeal to a wider range of voters," according to an IRI report. (Human Rights Watch found that at least two members of the police force controlled by Peña--now Chavez's primary rival--fired weapons during the April 11 melee.) The question, then, is, since it was not explicit US policy to call for Chavez's ouster--though his departure from office was desired by the Bush Administration, which detested his oil sales to Cuba and close ties to Iraq, Iran and Libya--should US taxpayer dollars have gone to groups working to unseat Chavez, even through legitimate means?


************************


Who is the National Endowment for Democracy?

http://www.ned.org/about/who.html

Officers

The Honorable Vin Weber
(Chairman)
Clark & Weinstock

Mr. Thomas R. Donahue
(Vice-Chair)
Senior Fellow
Work in America Institute

Mrs. Julie Finley
(Treasurer)
Founder, Board Member
United States Committee on NATO

Mr. Matthew F. McHugh
(Secretary)
Counselor to the President
The World Bank

Carl Gershman
President

Directors

Ambassador Morton Abramowitz
Senior Fellow
Century Foundation

The Honorable Evan Bayh
United States Senate

The Honorable Frank Carlucci
The Carlyle Group

General Wesley K. Clark
Stephens Group, Inc.

The Honorable Christopher Cox
United States House of Representatives

Ms. Ester Dyson
Chairman
Edventure Holdings

Ms. Jean Bethke Elshtain
University of Chicago

The Honorable William H. Frist
United States Senate

Dr. Francis Fukuyama
Johns Hopkins University,
Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies

Ms. Suzanne Garment
Dow, Lohnes & Albertson

Mr. Ralph J. Gerson
President & CEO
Guardian International Corp.

The Honorable Bob Graham
United States Senate

The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton
Director
The Woodrow Wilson Center

Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
Counselor
Perseus

Mr. Emmanuel A. Kampouris
President and CEO, Retired
American Standard, Inc.

The Honorable Jon Kyl
United States Senate

Mr. Leon Lynch
Vice President
United Steelworkers of America

The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks
United States House of Representatives

Mr. Michael Novak
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Ambassador Terence A. Todman
International Consultant

Ambassador Howard Wolpe
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars


************************


According to the Venezuelan newsmagazine Sobrian, Wesley Clark directed NED's destabilization campaign against the democratically elected government of Hugo Chavez:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522Frank%2BCarlucci%2522%2BNED%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">Translation Link

(slightly corrected google translation)

Implication of the secret networks of the company to demolish to Chávez
Stay- behind: Failure of the operative one in Venezuela

Network Voltaire / IPI Agency - October/02

(SNIP)

In order to finance the movements, Elliot Abrams and Otto Reich resorted to diverse disguises, mainly the National for Endowment Democracy. Created in 1983 by Ronald Reagan, the NED was administered by Henry Kissinger and by the president of the union Afl-cio Lane Kirkland. Presided over nowadays by Carl Gersham and mainly administered by general Wesley Clark (ex- supreme head commander of NATO during the War of the Kosovo) and by the inevitable Frank Carlucci (old director, present president of the Carlyle Group and administrator of the fortune of the family Bin Laden ).

In order to carry out this operation, the NED spent near two million dollars in Venezuela.


Was Wesley Clark really the NED's main administrator during the Venzuelan coup debacle?

If so, do we really need to compromise our ideals this much in the name of electability -- particularly now that we've got Chimpy on the ropes?

[dkf]

1. No way!

Wow. And wasn't that a mess.

BTW, how did you find this?

[stickdog]

3. FIXED TRANSLATION LINK IS HERE!

http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522Frank%2BCarlucci%2522%2BNED%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">Fixed Translation Link From Original Posting Above

[bobthedrummer]

168. Great work, stickdog!

Thanx:hi:

[mhr]

2. One More Nail In The Coffin

eom

[SeveneightyWhoa]

4. So is this reliable info?

Someone tell me how reliable this information is. If its true that Clark played a part in the Chavez coup, I will DEFINITELY drop my support of him. That is, of course, if this is indeed true.

[stickdog]

16. I don't know for sure. But Clark's in NED, Corn confirms NED was

behind the coup, and the Spanish translation article has over 35 supporting footnotes.

Greg Palast would have the answer on this.

[KittyWampus]

20. You Have Shown Your True Colors, Stickdog

The Sobriania info has been faked.

Did you do it?

Does your blind hatred of a Democratic nominee prevent you from investigating the garbage you put up on this website? Because healthy sane animals don't sit where they eat or sleep.

Are you an unwitting dupe?

This is a DISGRACE!

[stickdog]

26. Jesus Christ. Can it with the conspiracy theories already, dude!

Time to take your medication.

Here are two links to the same article:

http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522Frank%2BCarlucci%2522%2BNED%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">Translation Link One

http://www.a-ipi.com/Paises-Mundo/ALatina/Venezuela/Dossier_Vene/Stay2.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3DChavez%2BVenezuela%2B%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522National%2BEndowment%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">Translation Link Two

[Pastiche423]

5. Holy shit!

:wow:

[TroubleMan]

6. You said both "trojan" and "endowment" in the topic title...

Sorry, it's a great post, but I have to point that out.


Seriously.....I will have to sit and ponder this info.

[seventhson]

7. I TOLD Y'All so!! I'm telling you again: Clark is DANGEROUS

And this, if true, is one more example of the danger he would pose as president: the same problem I have with Kerry and the Bonesmen: they support the destabilization of democracies. Kerry was supportive of the Contras.

It sucks to have them as "Democratic" candidates for Prez

[Zuni]

92. Nicaragua was not a democracy

so technically kerry did not support the destabilization of a democracy.

[seventhson]

228. It was a Revolution against fascism that was moving towrds democracy

Kerry supported the destabilization of THAT by endorsing the illegal contra effort IMHO

[IndianaGreen]

322. Nicaragua was a democracy, the Contras wanted Somoza back

And the same School of the Americas that Wesley Clark defended so much, was involved in training the Contra assassins.

[roughsatori]

8. YIKES!! Some of those Directors and Officers are known Monsters

I read it and bookmarked it to come back to when my mind is fresh. Thanks that post has very disturbing implications.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

55. Yes, indeed...I just read a couple of the bios a few minutes ago...

...for instance:

Vin Weber
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/weber.html>

"Prior to joining Clark & Weinstock, Mr. Weber was president, and remains co-director with Jack Kemp, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Bill Bennett, of Empower America, an organization advocating policies that emphasize individual responsibility and accountability in approaching economic, social welfare and educational problems."

Julie Finley
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/finley.html>

"Since 1997, Julie Finley has served as co-chair of the Republican National Committee's major fundraising arm, Team 100. She is also the national committee woman for the D.C. Republican Committee, a founding member of the Council for Republicans, chairman and founder of the Republican Primary PAC, and a founding member of the WISH List and the Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy (CREA). She is a member of the Republican Leadership Council's steering committee."

Bill Frist
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/frist.html>

Frank C. Carlucci
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/carlucci.html>

"Frank C. Carlucci is Chairman and a Partner in The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D. C. based merchant bank.

Prior to joining The Carlyle Group in 1989, Mr. Carlucci served as Secretary of Defense from 1987-1989. Previously he had served as President Reagan's National Security Advisor in 1987.

Prior to returning to Government service, Mr. Carlucci was Chairman and CEO of Sears World Trade, a business he joined in 1983. His Government service included positions as Deputy Secretary of Defense (1980-82), Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (1978-80), Ambassador to Portugal (1975-78), Under Secretary of Health Education and Welfare (1973-75), Deputy Director of OMB (1970-72), and Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity (1969). Mr. Carlucci was a Foreign Service Officer from 1956 to 1980."

Christopher Cox
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/cox.html>

"...was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1988 to represent California's 47th district.

As Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, a post he has held for eight years, Cox is the highest ranking member of the California congressional delegation, and is the fifth-ranking member of the Republican House leadership.

Prior to his election to the Congress, Cox served as Senior Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, practiced law, and taught at Harvard Business School."

Michael Novak
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/novak.html>

"holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., where he is Director of Social and Political Studies."

John Kyl
<http://www.ned.org/about/board_bios/kyl.html>

"was elected in Arizona to the U.S. Senate in 1994 and re-elected in 2000, after serving four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. He currently chairs the Republican Policy Committee; the Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information; and the Subcommittee on Health Care. He is a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee."

[punpirate]

64. Here's a bit more on board members...

... I've sort of skipped over the well-known yahoos like Kyl and Frist:

The Honorable Vin Weber
(Chairman)
Clark & Weinstock

http://www.mediatransparency.org/people/vin_weber.htm

Vin Weber is also a regional chairman for the Bush-Cheney `04 election committee.


Mr. Thomas R. Donahue
(Vice-Chair)
Senior Fellow
Work in America Institute

Donahue is a former interim president of the AFL-CIO. The Work in America Institute seems to do a lot of studies on the nature of work, but it's well-supported by many large corporations, most of whom have workers in large unions. Corporations represented on the Institute's Board of Directors include AT&T, Exxon, General Electric, Philip Morris, and Honeywell. Most of the institute's work is about increasing productivity.


Mrs. Julie Finley
(Treasurer)
Founder, Board Member
United States Committee on NATO

RANSAC.org says: "Many of the senior Bush appointees - from Mr. Wolfowitz to Stephen J. Hadley, the deputy national security adviser - were board members of the United States Committee on NATO, a group dedicated to the expansion of the alliance perhaps as far as the Baltics."


Mr. Matthew F. McHugh
(Secretary)
Counselor to the President
The World Bank

McHugh is a former Democratic Rep from upstate NY. Might actually be reasonably honest if one goes by an article in "Reason" mentioning him.


Carl Gershman
President

Gershman is an academic and a former influential member of the rightist branch of the Social Democratic Party (SD/USA). GroupWatch says this of the rightist splinters of that group: Carl Gershman and Bayard Rustin were former leaders of SD/USA. (3,8) Jeane Kirkpatrick, Elliott Abrams, and Max Kampleman are among the better known members of SD/USA. (8) Commentary magazine and the Committee for the Free World are also mentioned as voices for SD/USA. (8)

The Social Democrats, USA (SD/USA) has its political roots in the Socialist Party. Its philosophical forefather was the intellectual Trotskyite, Max Shactman. Shactman, initially a Communist, became increasinging disenchanted with the actions of the Soviet Union under Stalin and developed a new genre of antiStalinist leftists. This group joined the Socialist party of Eugene Debs and Norman Thomas in the 1960s. (2) It was in this period that the
SD/USA made its commitment to, and its first inroads into the organized labor movement. In 1972, the Socialist Party split into two factions; the left led by Michael Harrington and the right or conservative wing led by Tom Kahn, Rachelle Horowitz, and Carl Gershman. (2) The latter became the SD/USA.

In the 1970s, under the leadership of Carl Gershman, SD/USAbecame a supporter of Sen. Henry Jackson and his contingent of conservative, hawkish "defenders of democracy." As such, they gained a great deal of political experience and saavy, but little political power. It was not until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, that the SD/USA achieved positions of power and influence in both the labor movement and the government. (2)


Directors

Ambassador Morton Abramowitz
Senior Fellow
Century Foundation

Former ambassador to Turkey and Thailand. Career diplomat.


The Honorable Evan Bayh
United States Senate

The Honorable Frank Carlucci
The Carlyle Group

General Wesley K. Clark
Stephens Group, Inc.

The Honorable Christopher Cox
United States House of Representatives

Ms. Ester Dyson
Chairman
EDventure Holdings

IT advisor to Clinton, daughter of the scientist, Freeman Dyson, EDventure is an IT-dominant venture capital fund. Boardmember emeritus of the EFF and former board member of ICANN.


Ms. Jean Bethke Elshtain
University of Chicago

Ms. is a bit deceptive. She's actually a University of Chicago Divinity School professor. Henry Kissinger speaks well of her writings, but she's also considered an authority on feminism. She's also written on the, in her terms, correct use of the religious "just war" principle in the "war" on terror. Townhall.com likes her....

The Honorable William H. Frist
United States Senate

Dr. Francis Fukuyama
Johns Hopkins University,
Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies

Some may have forgotten, but Fukuyama is principally a futurist, and is a great believer in liberal capitalism being a global social force.

Ms. Suzanne Garment
Dow, Lohnes & Albertson

Again, listing her as a member of her law firm is a bit deceptive. She's also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Former Moynihan aide and married to former Nixon lawyer, Leonard Garment.

Mr. Ralph J. Gerson
President & CEO
Guardian International Corp.

Frequenter with Ronald Brown on US trade missions. Guardian makes glass, and is building plants in Mexico.

The Honorable Bob Graham
United States Senate

The Honorable Lee H. Hamilton
Director
The Woodrow Wilson Center

Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke
Counselor
Perseus

Mr. Emmanuel A. Kampouris
President and CEO, Retired
American Standard, Inc.

Was on the board of Hudson Institute, seems very much interested in pushing WTO-style global economy.

The Honorable Jon Kyl
United States Senate

Mr. Leon Lynch
Vice President
United Steelworkers of America

The Honorable Gregory W. Meeks
United States House of Representatives

Meeks was one of the Congressional Black Caucus to say that going to war with Iraq was wrong, and was a failure to use diplomacy.

Mr. Michael Novak
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

Also regular contributor to Townhall and the National Review. Very conservative writer on religious topics.

Ambassador Terence A. Todman
International Consultant

Was ambassador to Spain and an assistant for inter-American affairs in the Carter administration.

Ambassador Howard Wolpe
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Wolpe is a former Democratic Rep. from Michigan, who chaired the House subcommittee on African affairs. The African-American Institute, the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society have all given him awards.

Cheers.

On edit, oops, forgot the officers.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

87. Thanks for the extra information...appreciate the efforts...

...that's a very "interesting" group of people, isn't it?

[KittyWampus]

9. Your Website Info Is BOGUS- AS IN FAKED!

So either you are unwittingly or willingly spreading garbage about a Democratic nominee.

I went to the Soberania webpage, Stickdog, and noticed how the page curiously turns back into Spanish a short while after it mentions the name "Wesley Clark". And by the way, the WAY the name Wesley Clark is written into the paragraph it sticks out like a sore thumb.

So I began wondering if someone might have planted the story or inserted his name into the piece... which is dated October 2nd...so it's fresh....

I clicked on the masthead tryingn to get to a home page to see who owns this... and I came up with a javascript error and my computer pretty much froze.

In the Javascript error there appeared many numbers and this "wesley%2bcclarkfrank%2bcarlucci%2s" so it looks to me as if someone just put his name in there.

WAS IT YOU?

So I don't know if Clark is in the Endowment, which is funded by Congress and includes one of the Congressmen from my state- Gregory Meeks who is in the Black Caucus- picture here.


But I AM highly suspicious of this information from Soberania.

[roughsatori]

19. it opened for me and does not appear bogus

I went to the link. Then clicked "view original webpage" then clicked for Soberania homepage. It worked and opened. Also you can google "soberania" to see that it is real.

Maybe I am missing something: you say Clark's name is pasted in. I don't see that. I hope you can explain me how it is bogus. Or that someone else can explain that it is not. But I did not get what you describe when I went to the link.

[KittyWampus]

23. Then Why Did The Javascript Error Pop Up With Clark's Name In It?

Why did the page devolve back into Spanish a short time after it mentions Clark's name?

And the way it mentions Clark's name is BIZARRE... out of context to the article.

[roughsatori]

40. That did not happen for me, there was no javascript error

Perhaps the link was incorrect and stickdog fixed it. But what you post did not happen at all when I opened the pages.

[w13rd0]

63. Most webpage translation services...

...only do the first 500 or so words of an article...

[Zuni]

91. I saw that too

it looks different than the other stuff.

[Aidoneus]

121. what is BIZARRE about it?

In the pragraph it just says that in order to finance the "protest" movements against Chavez (like so many CIA overthrow attempts in the last), Eliot Abrams and Otto Reich (two slimy bastards, if I may be allowed to editorialize outside of my paraphrasing) turned to disguises to do so, like the NED. It then says that the NED was created in 1983 by Reagan, administered by Kissinger, and that it is presided over nowadays by Carl Gersham, mainly administered by General Wesley Clark and Frank Carlucci (current President of the Carlyle Group). In parenthesis following Clark's name it mentions that he was ex-Supreme Commander of NATO during the Kosova War.

I don't believe the piece claims Clark was behind the coup, but rather stating facts. I can confirm elsewhere that he is on the Board of Directors for the NED; what role he had in the coup against Chavez I cannot say (nor does this piece, except that he was involved with the NED at the time), though the role of the NED itself in the attempt against Chavez is proven.

[Pastiche423]

25. It opened fine for me too

I don't understand about the implanting of clark's name?

[stickdog]

21. Oh, Jesus, and the token black guy makes NED all better, right?

Try this link:

http://www.a-ipi.com/Paises-Mundo/ALatina/Venezuela/Dossier_Vene/Stay2.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3DChavez%2BVenezuela%2B%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522National%2BEndowment%2522%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">Another Translation Link of the Same Article



Dude, talk about a conspiracy theorist! You really take the cake!

[KittyWampus]

104. Your Original Link No Longer Works

1.The one that goes to the Sobriania page... so I couldn't get a webshot of the Javascript error around Clark's name.

2. Your second, newer, and much more "polished" page has no link to it's publisher AND NO INDICATION OF AUTHOR.

Who wrote it?

Second the timing of this is highly suspicious. Two days ago Clark fingers PNAC in a Talking Points Memo and Yesterday he rightly accuses Bush of being criminal in using FALSE info to get us into Iraq.

So the question is, why are you doing Karl Rove's work? Smearing Clark by linking to a "blank" article the accuses Clark of Engineering the Venezuela Coup?

I AM NOT A DUDE by the way.

And you are most likely an agitator so it's funny that you accuse ME of conspiracy crap when you are the one doing this.

[Aidoneus]

the original link was pasted improperly

it had an extra "http", so the link comes out bad.. http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522Wesley%2BClark%2522%2B%2522Frank%2BCarlucci%2522%2BNED%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8">try this instead

This "javascript error" may be a link to a biography of Clark, as the document elsewhere has hyperlinks to backgrounds to people like Powell, Bush, etc.. as well. Perhaps the code for the extra link for him was written improperly. At any rate, I get no javascript error, centred on Clark or anywhere else in the document, and for me Clark's name is bolded like the rest of the names in the paragraph..

If Google's translator is anything like Babelfish, the translation has a limit to how much it can translate before the rest of the document reverts back to the original language. That is annoying as hell sometimes, but not a symptom of any insidious conspiracy.

Do you have any other desperate accusations for me to knock down? I didn't have to try very hard for this much, and I get a kick out of popping a True Believer's delusional bubble (whether it's some fanatic who thinks Bush is G-d's Favourite Son, or these rabid candidate partisans who get all huffy when their guy isn't the rock their church is built on, etc)..

Maybe now you'll make some conspiracy out of the fact that my post here doesn't seem to have a number.. THAT, I can't explain.

[KittyWampus]

114. Well Soberania DOESN'T EVEN HAVE THE ARTICLE TODAY!!!

I just went to Soberania's homepage and searched their site for articles mentioning Wesley Clark.


The most recent was from about a month ago and here is the extract:


Y aunque el ex funcionario evitó cuestionar la estrategia que se aplicó durante la invasión de Irak, quien sí lo
hizo fue el demócrata Wesley Clark.

En una entrevista divulgada ayer por Global Viewpoint, el ex general -que comandó las fuerzas aliadas de la
OTAN en los Balcanes y dirigió la ofensiva contra el elpresidente Slobodan Milosovic - aseguró que la
administración Bush todavía no tiene una estrategia en ese país, "lo que está poniendo a los soldados
estadounidenses en una situación muy dificil". Para Clark la realidad de la ocupación es tan delicada que
requiere más que "buenos soldados". En sus declaraciones, el posible candidato para presidente calificó
de dificultoso el intento de acercamiento de Bush a las Naciones unidas, "Será dificil que la ONU acepte
hacerse cargo de la situación de Irak mientras EE.UU. mantenga el control político y militar", aseguró a la luz
de su experiencia militar.

Para Clark; bajo "estas circunstancias será absolutamente imposible para otros países enviar tropas a Irak
porque carecen de los medios necesarios para salvaguardar a sus tropas de los atentados terroristas que
están sufriendo las fuerzas de EE.UU.", dijo.

[Aidoneus]

117. actually YEAH THEY DO

http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm

and guess what:--CLARK'S NAME IS STILL THERE.

please keep 'em coming..

[KittyWampus]

124. Please Provide Article's AUTHOR Please

And who owns the venue publishing it....

Since you're staying right on top of this buddy...

By the way, why don't you start slamming BOB GRAHAM??? He is associated with the NED and is ALSO a Democraticcandidate.

[Aidoneus]

120. Your claims are bogus -- AS IN LIES

Of course you're suspicious, because it clashes directly with the comfortable fantasy constructed. Here's where the general cloud of fog around Clark comes into play--his fan club basically imagined the best parts of themselves to project onto their savior, but when something heterodoxical comes up it's denied out of principle even when it's true.

I pointed out to you above the original, non-translated piece, and guess what:--it's exactly the same, but in another language. A shallow search on Google reveals that the article is reproduced elsewhere in its exact same form. PLEASE do your homework before spouting off, I shouldn't have to do it for you. :eyes:

http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm

The offending paragraph, no different (sans language) from the translated and what is above:

Para financiar los movimientos de protestación, Elliot Abrams y Otto Reich recurrieron a los diversos disfraces con que cuenta la CIA, principalmente el National Endowment for Democracy (NED – ver 30). Creado en 1983 por Ronald Reagan, el NED era administrado por Henry Kissinger por el presidente del sindicato AFL- CIO Lane Kirkland. Presidido hoy en día por Carl Gersham y sobre todo administrado por el general Wesley Clark (ex jefe supremo comandante de la OTAN durante la Guerra del Kosovo) y por el inevitable Frank Carlucci (antiguo director adjunto de la CIA, actual presidente del Carlyle Group y administrador de la fortuna de la familia Ben Laden) (31) (foto abajo).

Google "Wesley Clark" "National Endowment for Democracy" (the whole italicized portion, with the two quotes as they are to get specifically those phrases exactly sought), and you can find from any random link (among his supporters, neutral parties, whatever) his openly acknowledged status on the NED. Now if you just give me a few minutes, I'll see if I can find something on the Venezuela claim. Since I'm batting a thousand so far, I'm not too worried.

This sort of blind fanaticism just comes off as desperate, and does nothing to pretty up your savior's past (perhaps in Orwell's fiction world can the past be changed when it is deemed inconvenient with impunity, here such practices are met with the same resistance you're meeting now).

[KittyWampus]

125. Your Desperate Attempts To Smear Clark Are Pathetic

Because he's associated with NED which is funded by Congress and includes Bob Graham another Prez Candidnate.

Funny how noone smearing Clark has mentioned BOB GRAHAM'S name... but Graham isn't part of your agenda.

Although if he posed as big a threat to Junior, I'm sure you'd start.

Further, until you can provide the article's AUTHOR and the OWNER OF VENUE WHERE IT WAS PUBLISHED.... you are pushing crap of the same magnitude that blames Clark for Waco.

And as for the problems with the Soberania website.... I am not a computer geek... and if hyperlinks caused the javascript error than it was just a coincidence that it burped on Clark's name, I guess...

[TLM]

133. If graham is working with these people, I wil l not vote for him either

How can you defend Clark working with the carlyle group, world bank, and Henry Fucking Kissinger.

In case you're not up on your history... Kissinger was the man behind the coup against the democratic government in Chile, that put Pinochette in power.

Kissinger destroyed democracies for breakfast... and Clark works for Kissinger in the NED AND in a K st lobbyist group called CSIS and antoher called the Stephens Group.



Little Rock-based Stephens Group Inc. <111 Center Street, Little Rock, Arkansas 72201 [phone], www.stephens.com> as a corporate consultant to help develop emerging-technology companies. For Immediate Release June 29, 2000 ... "U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark recently retired after 34 years of dedicated military service to his country.

Also a senior adviser at CSIS - (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1800 K Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20006 Fax [phone] ]

2000 CSIS budget, $16 million,
CSIS Affiliates: The International Councillors, a group of international business leaders chaired by Henry Kissinger, meets semiannually to discuss the implications of the changing economic and strategic environment. The Advisory Board is composed of both public- and private-sector policymakers, including several members of Congress. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Carla Hills cochair the board. The Washington Roundtable meets three to four times a year with members of Congress, executive branch officials, and other Washington experts to discuss pressing policy issues of the day. The Houston and Dallas Roundtables bring together local business leaders and CSIS experts to discuss current international political and economic trends.
CSIS Board, Counselors, and Advisers Board of Trustees Chairman Sam Nunn Senior Partner, King and Spalding Vice Chairman David M. Abshire President, Center for the Study of the Presidency, and Cofounder of CSIS Chairman, Executive Committee Anne Armstrong* Former U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Members George L. Argyros Carla A. Hills Betty Beene Ray L. Hunt Reginald K. Brack Henry A. Kissinger William E. Brock Donald B. Marron Harold Brown Felix G. Rohatyn Zbigniew Brzezinski Charles A. Sanders William S. Cohen James R. Schlesinger J. Michael Cook William A. Schreyer* Ralph Cossa Brent Scowcroft Douglas N. Daft Murray Weidenbaum Robert A. Day Dolores D. Wharton Richard Fairbanks Frederick B. Whittemore Michael P. Galvin* R. James Woolsey Joseph T. Gorman Amos A. Jordan, (Emeritus) John J. Hamre* Leonard H. Marks, (Emeritus) Robert S. Strauss, (Emeritus) *Member of the Executive Committee Counselors William E. Brock Henry A. Kissinger Harold Brown Sam Nunn Zbigniew Brzezinski James R. Schlesinger William S. Cohen Brent Scowcroft Richard Fairbanks Senior Advisers J. Carter Beese Amos A. Jordan Bradley D. Belt John Kornblum James M. Bodner Robert H. Kupperman Stanton H. Burnett Laurence Martin Richard R. Burt Thomas F. (Mack) McLarty Wesley K. Clark Walter Slocombe William K. Clark, Jr. Robert Tyrer Arnaud de Borchgrave Anthony Zinni Diana Lady Dougan Luis E. Giusti Fred C. Iklé (Distinguished Scholar in Residence)

[Aidoneus]

136. I hate election years..

I'm sorry that you have such a persecution complex that you deem clear recital of easily uncovered facts to counter unfounded suspicion is tantamount to a "desperate attempt to smear".. I'm also really sorry that your guy isn't The Second Coming like everybody thought he was, that's not my fault either so don't jump up my ass for having the raw nerve to point it out..

Making this easy, what exactly have I said that constitutes "Desperate Attempts To Smear Clark"? Key word:--exact..

Funny how noone smearing Clark has mentioned BOB GRAHAM'S name... but Graham isn't part of your agenda.

Look before leaping, my dear. Actually, I was speaking against Graham months ago, and for that I was attacked as "pro-terror" by a poster now tombstoned. I don't like him too much either, plus he seems to be dropping out (never was much anyway, his idea of opposing the Iraq war was attacking Iran/Syria/Lebanon instead).

To be fair and perfectly clear, I don't like the CIA/NED/etc, those with ties to them, or what they do to the world. Take that however you wish, but don't just make up things that I have not said.

Although if he posed as big a threat to Junior, I'm sure you'd start.

I'm not sure what you're accusing me of here. Am I one of Rove's paid agents? If so, I'm pissed:--my check was late this month.

All of this "ROVE FEARS CLARK"/"ROVE FEARS <blah>" or somesuch bullshit strikes me as juvenile nonsense and couldn't possibly be a more irrelevant and shallow type of discussion (if it would even qualify for "discussion").

Further, until you can provide the article's AUTHOR and the OWNER OF VENUE WHERE IT WAS PUBLISHED.... you are pushing crap of the same magnitude that blames Clark for Waco.

I'm not your errand boy, even my lazy ass found it with little effort, it shouldn't be hard to find. The original/untranslated web link was found by clicking on the corrected link of the translation originally posted. That brings you to:
http://www.soberania.info/Articulos/articulo_015.htm

It appears to originally be from a webpage called the "Agencia Informe de Prensa Internatcional", affiliated with another page called RedVoltaire.net (that one I am familiar with, though not directly); the A-IPI he page is http://www.a-ipi.com/ ... Now, please continue your conspiratorial ravings once you find something dasterdly about it too.

What is the false claim here?
from www.MeetClark.com's FAQ about Clark:--
..."board member of the National Endowment for Democracy"...

The A-IPI piece does not claim that Clark was behind the coup--as some here (you included) may have extrapolated, but rather that he is affiliated with the NED--cannot be denied--at the time of the coup and that the NED was used (like the CIA has for decades in overthrowing governments it has no business in messing with) to fund the "protests". If you are saying any of that is untrue, do so directly and leave the incoherent ravings aside. Also, please do not just recycle what I have said to you and just flip it around:--it just makes you look petty, unoriginal, and unimaginative.

And as for the problems with the Soberania website.... I am not a computer geek... and if hyperlinks caused the javascript error than it was just a coincidence that it burped on Clark's name, I guess...

I received no such error, what are you using to view the page?

[Aidoneus]

327. perhaps I was a bit rude

it is my tendency to come on just as strong as that which I reply to, with a little dark humour on the side..

All the same:--are the facts here disputed, or would it just be preferred that they just not be true? I notice most of the attempts to pigeonhole the material stickdog put forward have not actually included proving the facts wrong--or successfully so, anyway--, just the loyalist being angered at their being put foward. As I said earlier, this is the problem with Clark--not much was really known about him, his fan club just assumed the best and lash out blindly when something disturbs their image of him.

[Aidoneus]

342. or perhaps I'm just being ignored

:kick:

[Forkboy]

347. Or you're just being the most logical person on this thread

:kick:

[ozone_man]

349. So, whose action item is it to find out

what Clark's involvement was in NED? Well good luck.

The CATO institute piece that Tinoire posted is pretty good reading. To me it seems as Stickdog has stated that it's sort of an offshoot of the CIA to make it easier for "Democratic" clandestine operations. I don't want a spook running the government. We already had Bush senior.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027.html

[KittyWampus]

350. My Dial Up Can't Handle This Thread However,

You are invited to participate in a new thread I started this morning entitled "National Endowment For Democracy And Clark" and covers same material. Of course my thread doesn't have the words "Trojan" and "Endowment" in it... so you might not want to participate :D

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=474693

[dfong63]

10. great find! but could you please

... replace that long google URL with a link statement, so that the text window will be a more manageable width? that would make your article easier to read. thanks!

[FubarFly]

11. Thanks for the research, stickdog.

I'm going to be carefully examining this for awhile. It's far too early for me to comment.

[IranianDemocrat]

12. Come on!! Sobrian???!!!

:eyes:

[ShaneGR]

13. Website is a complete fraud, as in made up

Just about 3/4 of the information is just plain fake. I'm actually going to forward it to Clark the Clark Press office. I think they have a pretty valid case for outright libel.

[stickdog]

28. Please keep us informed about how Clark's libel suit goes.

:eyes:

[dkf]

45. I would love to hear what Clark has to say about this.

Keep me posted too!

[dfong63]

14. clark proud of his involvement

One of the things I'm most proud of is they asked me to serve on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy. I don't know if you all know what the National Endowment for Democracy is, but President Ronald Reagan started it in the early 1980s to promote American values abroad. And one of the things that we do with a very small amount of money--which I hope Sen. Hutchinson will keep in mind and help us a little bit with, and maybe his brother will too. This is a $30 million program that could be a $70 million program. We help democracy, we help elections, we help form political parties. There's a National Democratic Institute, an International Republican Institute. And we've got great young men and women out serving our way of life in these other countries. And they're doing a great job of it. And thank God Ronald Reagan had the vision to start that. But I'm really proud to be on that. We've got to do that. link

[FubarFly]

17. Thanks. I was looking for a transcript of that speech.

Lots of reading to do tonight. :-(

[stickdog]

30. Maybe Clark needs to sue himself for libel? (NT)

[knowledgeispower]

192. UGH, his incessant praise of Reagan upsets me dearly

He has bashed trickle down economics, but otherwise seems to think Reagan was some kind of god.

[SWPAdem]

218. Incessant?

Oh, that's right, he mentioned him at least a gazillion times today in his speech to the DNC. Get a fricking clue.

[stickdog]

243. There you Clarkies go again ... (NT)

[goforit]

244. YEp, enough to make you throw up!!

Reagan destroyed this country!

He was the one who allowed the Big companies to buy ou their
competitors....basically making monopolies.

And now the Mega Corporations are dictating policy where the
little guy has no voice!!!!

More people have lost jobs and have been displace than at any other time.
And Reagan gave full reign to Bush Sr. whom was not only
the iran-contra point man/Panama man/ Niguragua fiasco/
Haiti terrorism....and Iraq I.

[carpetbagger]

15. Grasping at straws.

First, factually you're wrong about Clark at the NED. He was a newly appointed director, not an officer, of the agency. The agency is administered, like any nonprofit with a board, not by the board, but by employees under something like an executive director.

Sure, Carmona was at the conference, but so were representatives of other disgruntled groups, as well as representatives of the Chavez government.

That's what peacemaking and nonviolent conflict resolution is. And that was the goal of the conference. It would look rather odd to invite only one side of a conflict to a meeting designed at opening up dialogue between two sides of a conflict.

Wouldn't it?

[dkf]

22. Well I found the whole Venezuela incident disgusting.

At the time of the overthrow I did read about this National Endowment for Democracy and I did not like what they were doing in Venezuela.

Just the fact that he is on the board of this organization, which someone pointed out has quite a few scary people in it, is revolting to me.

Yaacck.

[carpetbagger]

43. There are scary people on the board.

But I need to point out that the people on the board are appointed by the government. Some of these guys are decent people. Holbrooke, Clark, Leon Lynch of United Steelworkers, Meeks, Graham, are all decent people. Clark was appointed by Clinton. But trolls appoint trolls, and so the board has over time reflected a preponderance of trolls nominated by Congress and The Boy Who Cried Wolf (R-TX).

[goforit]

245. Very observant!!!!

Birds of a feather flock together.

translates into....

Pajaro en mano que cien volando!!!!!

[stickdog]

31. So David Corn was grasping at straws? Please!

You Clarkies are the ones who are grasping desperately for something to cover the truth:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20020805&s=corn

In the weeks before the April 12-13 coup in Venezuela, Asociacion Civil Consorcio Justicia, a legal rights outfit, was planning an April 10 conference to promote democracy in that country. At the time, Venezuela was undergoing severe political strife. Business groups and labor unions were bitterly squaring off against President Hugo Chavez, a democratically elected strongman/populist. Using an $84,000 grant from the Washington-based National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental foundation funded by Congress, Consorcio Justicia was supposed to bring together political parties, unions, business associations, religious groups and academicians to discuss "protecting fundamental political rights," as an NED document put it. In a proposed agenda Consorcio Justicia listed as one of the main speakers Pedro Carmona, president of Fedecamaras, a leading Venezuelan business group. But when the coup came, Carmona was handpicked by the plotters to head a government established in violation of the Constitution. Then he signed a decree suspending the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. Carmona, it turns out, was hardly interested in safeguarding "fundamental political rights."

Which brings us back to Venezuela--where the US Embassy was compelled after the coup to declare as a "myth" the notion that "the US government, through organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy, financed coup efforts." For months before the coup, Americans--including US government officials and officials of NED and its core grantees--were in contact with Venezuelans and political parties that became involved or possibly involved with the coup. This has provided Latin Americans cause to wonder if the United States is continuing its tradition of underhandedly meddling in the affairs of its neighbors to the south. And these contacts have prompted some, though not much, official probing in Washington. The issue is not only whether the United States in advance OK'd this particular coup (of which there is little evidence) or tried to help it once it occurred (of which there is more evidence). But did discussions between Americans and Chavez foes--such as those involving NED--encourage or embolden the coup-makers and their supporters? Give them reason to believe the United States would not protest should they move against Chavez in an unconstitutional manner? Much of the two-day coup remains shrouded in confusion. (It came and went so quickly: Carmona fled office the day after he seized power, once several military units announced they opposed the military coup, whereupon Chavez was returned to his office.) But enough questions linger about US actions in Venezuela to warrant a good look.

Consider some NED activities there. When Consorcio Justicia began to assemble the pro-democracy conferences, it approached the two main opponents of Chavez--Carmona and his Fedecamaras, as well as the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), the leading anti-Chavez labor union--according to documents obtained from NED under a Freedom of Information Act request. Christopher Sabatini, NED's senior program officer for Latin America, says, "The idea was that the conferences (which were to include Chavistas) would be able to define a consensus-based policy agenda" for the entire country. But certainly NED's core grantees were trying to beef up Venezuelan organizations challenging Chavez. The AFL-CIO, for example, was working (seemingly laudably) to bolster and democratize the CTV, which Chavez had been trying to intimidate and infiltrate. The International Republican Institute was training several parties that opposed Chavez. At one session, Mike Collins, a former GOP press secretary, taught party leaders how to mount photo-ops; at another he suggested to Caracas Mayor Alfredo Peña, a prominent Chavez foe, how he "could soften his aggressive image in order to appeal to a wider range of voters," according to an IRI report. (Human Rights Watch found that at least two members of the police force controlled by Peña--now Chavez's primary rival--fired weapons during the April 11 melee.) The question, then, is, since it was not explicit US policy to call for Chavez's ouster--though his departure from office was desired by the Bush Administration, which detested his oil sales to Cuba and close ties to Iraq, Iran and Libya--should US taxpayer dollars have gone to groups working to unseat Chavez, even through legitimate means?

Moreover, NED and its grantees helped organizations that may have been represented in the coup government. When Carmona unveiled his Cabinet on the morning of April 12--hours after he was placed in power by the military at 5 am--his junta included a leading official from COPEI, the Christian Democrat party, and one from Primero Justicia, a new party. IRI had provided assistance to both. Carmona also named a member of the CTV board as minister of planning, even though he was not a recognized leader of the union. And when Carmona assumed power in the presidential palace, a leading CTV figure was supposedly nearby--though his whereabouts and his role have been subjects of debate. The CTV did denounce Carmona--but not until Carmona, on the afternoon of April 12, announced his decree to shutter the National Assembly and the Supreme Court. It's not easy to determine whether Carmona's Cabinet appointees were acting on behalf of their parties or freelancing. And as one current Venezuelan official says, "The appointees were never sworn in as ministers, so they can claim they did not approve of Carmona's decree."

[KittyWampus]

126. Corn Went Out Of His Way To Shield Junior Bush

When the LIHOP/MIHOP started getting steam on the web.

[Zuni]

95. Good point

I think the inmformation is a bit fishy too.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

18. I want Dean to say he'll cut funding for the NED

Dean should immediately come out against Reagan's and Clark's NED, and say if he becomes president he will eliminate their funding.

[stickdog]

33. I'd like to see that as well.

But would this promise involve a concomitant plane crash?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

37. Dean is begging NED people for endorsments right now

I'm sure Dean will propose a healthy budget for NED as president, and you know damn well he won't come out against it. Dean will ask these people to be in his administration.

[stickdog]

49. Well, look what happened when Bush fucked with the CIA.

I have no idea what Dean's take is on NED, but it's the type of organization I'd step lightly around if I were a Presidential candidate.

But that doesn't mean that I'd actively participate or advocate a Venezuelan coup.

I'll ask Dean about Venezuela and NED next time I get a chance. I'd like to get him on the record that he won't try to actively destabilize elected democracies worldwide.

Of course, this parenthetical aside has nothing to do with the issue at hand, WCTV.

[Renew Deal]

50. But I haven't seen anything that says Clark advocated the coup.

So why is it OK for Dean and not for Clark?

[stickdog]

56. If the articles above are correct, Clark ADMINISTERED the NED's

involvement with the attempted Venezuelan coup.

At minimum, Clark's one of the leaders of a VERY involved organization.

How can you compare that to Dean?

Dean wasn't even peripherally involved and, AFAIK, hasn't even commented on the coup in Venezuela.

Plus, YOU'RE CHANGING THE SUBJECT AGAIN!

[dkf]

58. Do you think if anyone asked Clark straight out

and he was involved that he could tell the truth?

I'm thinking maybe this whole thing was illegal and he couldn't admit to it.

What do you think?

Otherwise, I was going to email Josh Marshall and ask him to question Clark.

[stickdog]

61. You should link this thread for good Josh at minimum.

I'd really appreciate an answer as well.

[Zuni]

97. You are assuming that Clark was involved in the Coup

because people in an organization he worked for met with a wide assortment of people in Venezula, one of whom later tried to overthrow the semi-dictatorial but elected government of Hugo Chavez.

[stickdog]

105. If Chavez is semi-dictatorial, what do you call the BFEE? (NT)

[Zuni]

107. The same thing--Bush is another wannabe dictator

Bush was not elected and the Patriot Act is dangerous for Civil Liberties

His whole administration is full of people who do not respect democracy or our constitution.

I hate Bush and his team.

[stickdog]

113. So I assume you support al-Qaeda's efforts to destabilize our

government as well?

[Zuni]

150. Al Quaeda does not want to just destabilize

they want to kill Americans and create fundamentalist governments in the ME.

[stickdog]

214. Luckily, the US never commissions people like Clark to kill anyone

in attempts to create governments more amendable to US interests (and US exploitation).

[goforit]

247. Al queda is ......

the Bush family!!!

[TLM]

137. The best they can do in the face of such proof Clark is a fraud...

is attack Dean.


Last time I checked Dean was not a K st. lobbyist for Henry Kissinger nor was he a director of the NED with the head of the fucking Carlyle Group.

Clark is working for the very same group of people who are pulling W's strings... the same f-ing people. I think they know Bush is no longer in a position to achive their goals, so they are now pushing Clark into the position to do so.


The draft clark folks are going to have to learn the meaning of the phrase... too good to be true, and do so real fucking quick before we end up with another Carlyle/World bank puppet, and this time one with the brains to get their agenda really moving forward.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

81. The issue at hand is that neither Dean nor Clark will do anything

except support NED, choose NED people for an administration, and support the destabilizing of democratic governments we don't like, since this has been US policy for 50 years, for both Republicans and Democrats.

Clark is getting smeared because he gets his hands dirty while Howard "Park Avenue" Dean just cheers from the sidelines.

Dean cheered EVERY war except this one, isn't it obvious why? It disgusts me that wealthy politicians are going to smear a US military man for doing what THEY ORDERED HIM TO DO, while the civilians who PROFIT from it wag their fingers like good liberals.

Disgusting and truly anti-American.

[stickdog]

86. You are a real piece of work.

Who was at fault for the Holocaust?

Hitler

the SS,

the Nazi Party,

the German people

or

the rest of the world who sat back a let it happen?

[Larkspur]

90. Dean opposed the Vietnam war

Like me, Dean supported Gulf War I because Iraq invaded Kuwait and Kuwait was one of our allies and our allies in that region begged for our help. Like me, Dean supported the Afghanistan war because the Taliban hosted Al Queda who took credit for the Sep 11, 2001 attacks against us. The Muslim world did not oppose us in attacking Afghanistan because they felt that we had a right to respond to the attack against our people. And like me, Dean opposed the 2003 Iraq War because there was no justification for it.

I don't like war and neither does Dean, but we live in a dangerous world and some people, like Al Queda terrorists have no problem killing people, including civilians and its against these kinds as well as rogue states that we have to continue to have a military.

Dean has said that he would use our military to protect American lives and interests but not to support Halliburton's profit margin. Dean favors imposing a morality on the use of force.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

96. "protect American lives and interests"

Yes, that's been the line for generations. Dean will be different how? Interests, just like we are protecting our interests in Iraq right now. I'm certain Dean won't be as obvious and incompentent as Bush is of course.

I'll bet anyone $20 right now that Dean will choose people from NED for his administration, and I'll add another $20 that he WILL NOT talk about them nor cut their funding. That is, if he doesn't choose Clark as VP.

This line of attack is disgusting because EVERY Democrat is involved in this, and the only critics have been us loony lefties. The ONLY reason this is being used is because Clark is military, and that' s disgusting.

$20 - Dean hires NED people for his administration. Admit it, you know it.

[Zuni]

98. Good points

Congress funds this organization, and that means Democrats are involved.

[stickdog]

112. Explain to me again what unknown hypotheticals about Dean

have to do with Clark administering the National Endowment for Democracy's destabilization efforts in Venezuela.

George Tenet was complicit in tbe build up to Bush's Iraq War. By your idiotic line of "argument," Dean's hypothetical future refusal to defund the CIA and his future hypothetical use of CIA in his administration make him as culpable for the Iraq War as Bush.

Your arguments are the very height of sophistry and your obviously feigned outrage and characterization of your own fake persona as "looney left" tell us everything we need to know about your real agenda.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

154. thanks for saying it

"Your arguments are the very height of sophistry and your obviously feigned outrage and characterization of your own fake persona as "looney left" tell us everything we need to know about your real agenda."

My agenda is to make sure yet another wealthy, out of touch, rich-ass liberal from an aristocratic Wall Street family doesn't take power in America - you know, the Bushes for one, and the Kerrys and Deans for another. My persona as "looney left" - I actually marched against the wars, Clinton's as well as Bush's, and you're doing black ops for Dean's campaign - I admit it, you're not "looney left" that's for sure.

Pretending Dean is outside of the American aristocracy that PAYS people like Clark to do their dirty work is sophistry of the worst kind. Damn, Clark has really disappointed me and I'll vote for Dean if I have to, but you people make it damned hard.

You don't like Clark because you'd rather have a nice rich white liberal that can look down at Clark who does the dirty work to KEEP THEM RICH. YOU PEOPLE will make up some bullshit excuse the first time Dean sends troops to protect an oil field, just like I saw the Clinton people do. Hypocrisy of the highest order, just like the Clinton fans who supported Clinton while he allowed the oil companies and death squads to rape Haiti while you all mouthed platitudes about Aristide.

"George Tenet was complicit in tbe build up to Bush's Iraq War. By your idiotic line of "argument," Dean's hypothetical future refusal to defund the CIA and his future hypothetical use of CIA in his administration make him as culpable for the Iraq War as Bush."

Give me ONE reason to think Dean won't support NED, ESPECIALLY since he wants Clark as his VP, and probably will lose without him.

I sure hope the six figure salary you'll get after Dean wins is enough to SOOTHE your conscience as you trash someone who spent their lives defending the US as Dean skiied in Aspen. You're probably not rich yourself, but have no problems running interference for these leeches if you can climb up one more notch.

Disgusting and shameful. People like you make me EMBARRASED to admit I'm a Democrat.

[stickdog]

204. You aren't fooling anyone, least of all me.

You can stop projecting yourself onto me because I am actually who you pretend to be.

I was born working class, and I'm still working class. I've never had more than $20,000 to my name in my entire life. And every time another fucking BUSH gets elected, what little savings I do have gets decimated. Both of my parents died while I was putting myself through college, and when they died all they left me was their loans.

I've never paid more than $3,000 for a car in my life, and I always pay cash and buy from an individual. Right now, I don't even have a car. I buy my clothes at Good-fucking-will, for God's sake. I'm a 100% grassroots street activist. I've never gotten a cent from any campaign I've volunteered for, and I've never worked for the government in any capacity.

I'm working for Dean INDEPENDENTLY AND FOR NO MONEY because:

1) BushCo is pure evil,

2) Dean will beat Bush's ass silly in a fair vote, and

3) Dean has embraced the idea of empowering an activist grassroots base like no other viable candidate in my lifetime.

Yes, people like Dean hire people like Clark to execute their dirty work. Yes, Dean comes from money. Yes, Dean may be running an anti-establishment campaign only because the establishment wouldn't take him seriously. However, among all the viable candidates (Dean, Clark, Kerry, Gephardt and maybe Lieberman and Edwards), Dean is the ONLY candidate whom I have ANY REASON WHATSOEVER to trust ONE IOTA.

Dean was speaking against the Iraq War as Saddam's statue was being pulled down.

Dean delivered nearly universal healthcare to Vermont.

Dean has embraced a grassroots activist movement rooted in antiwar sentiments that literally SCARES THE LIVING SHIT out of the neocon global chessplayer scum who hired you for the sole purpose of jamming it.

If you gave one shit about shaking up the status quo and returning even a sliver of our ostensible democracy to regular people LIKE ME, you'd have realized long ago that Dean's groundbreaking grassroots campaign offers us the best hope by far -- while Clark's oligarchic selection by the very same establishment that brought us Bush I and Bush II couldn't be more antithetical.

Yes, Dean will probably be forced into doing the oligarchy's bidding whether he likes it or not. But you sure as hell won't see me doing anything other than crying holy hell to kingdom come when he does -- along with as many of his (former) grassroots supporters as I can rally. And, as Dean's activist volunteer base, at the very least we'll have some sway over Dean's decision making in the same way that the religious right holds sway our devil worshipping Pretzeldent.

Meanwhile, Prince Neo-Clark, having been installed by the DLC, PNAC and Carlyle crowd and having been elected through THEIR TREACHERY combined with OUR STUPIDITY, IGNORANCE AND APATHY, will owe nothing to anyone except the corrupt establishment that foisted him on us with your paid assistance. While Dean has proved himself to be a nettlesome and (relatively) uncontrollable maverick, Clark has shown himself to be the ultimate mercenary soldier -- willing to personally effect any crime no matter how heinous, just as long as it furthered his own ambitions.

In summary, fuck off, you transparent pretender.

[goforit]

248. WOW Stickdog!!!.......Awesome autobiography!!!!

Yep......certainly can agree!!!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

334. Dean isn't fooling most people, either

"Dean has embraced the idea of empowering an activist grassroots base like no other viable candidate in my lifetime."

You must be young. Dean's the first presidential candidate to campaign on the internet. Good. Is it a "groundbreaking grassroots campaign"? Not really. The grassroots anti-war campaign does scare a lot of people, and electing Dean is a good place to keep them busy. That way they aren't working to stop the war.

"Yes, people like Dean hire people like Clark to execute their dirty work. Yes, Dean comes from money. Yes, Dean may be running an anti-establishment campaign only because the establishment wouldn't take him seriously. However, among all the viable candidates (Dean, Clark, Kerry, Gephardt and maybe Lieberman and Edwards), Dean is the ONLY candidate whom I have ANY REASON WHATSOEVER to trust ONE IOTA."

I can't see why you trust Dean? I don't? I'd trust Gephardt a lot more, at least he has a long record of pro-union and pro-working class action. If it wasn't for Clark he probably would have had the AFL-CIO endorsement. In comparison Dean's record is light-weight. Why do you trust Dean? Because he got a lot of middle class white people organized on the internet? Because his campaign staff spammed the anti-war and anti-globalization email lists enough times to get name recognition as a politican who made speeches against the war? His career is as a center-right governor of a liberal state. Big deal? This is his last chance at a political career. Why do I care? I guess I'm just a bit more cynical than you.

If Dean wins he'll need someone "strong on national security" - and we know Dean has been wanting Clark, or he'll get someone else like Clark. So Dean means more NED, and everyone knows it or should know it. The global chessplayers will be the core of Dean's cabinet. You know that right? Are you trying to tell me that Dean is such a good hearted person that I can trust him to put a break on the global chessplayers he hired and end war? Why do you believe that? Because he's a true leader and a healer not a killer? Did you look him in the eye and see his soul? Maybe you trust him because Dean spent his life healing the sick in Vermont while someone like Clark propped up the oil industry that made all those cars in Vermont possible? Clark got his hands dirty, and Dean and his kind lived off of the profits. I'm sure Dean spoke passionately to his friends about his opposition to Vietnam up at the ski cabin.

America is running a huge empire. We need someone who can keep it from getting bigger and keep it from destroying us.

"If you gave one shit about shaking up the status quo and returning even a sliver of our ostensible democracy to regular people LIKE ME, you'd have realized long ago that Dean's groundbreaking grassroots campaign offers us the best hope by far -- while Clark's oligarchic selection by the very same establishment that brought us Bush I and Bush II couldn't be more antithetical."

It seems to me that the oligarchy would take Clark over Dean, but would prefer Kerry. Not my fault the oligarchy considers Dean unelectable, he applied and they didn't like him. I guess they take him more seriously now that he's run a good campaign. I'm not trying to fool anyone, nor am I fooling myself. I guess I'm not a doughy-eyed neophyte who thinks Dean is the most super teriffic politician ever that really care about the people!

I guess you are working class, no one else would argue in public like we are :)

[stickdog]

336. I somehow got your ass. Would you please take it off my hands?

You must be young.


I wish. I'm middle aged. Let's just say that I watched the Neil Armstrong highlight reels when Kubrick first premiered them. ;-)


Dean's the first presidential candidate to campaign on the internet. Good. Is it a "groundbreaking grassroots campaign"? Not really.


By what concrete measure is Dean's campaign not groundbreaking?


The grassroots anti-war campaign does scare a lot of people, and electing Dean is a good place to keep them busy. That way they aren't working to stop the war.


:eyes:

On which Presidential candidate would their efforts be better spent? Marching against the war is all well and good. But I seem to do it several times every year. So how exactly was the establishment scared of these marches?

Meanwhile, they are so frightened of Dean's engaged activist "troops" that they've decided to push for the nomination of a prickly, narcissistic and slightly unstable Demopublican just to stop a grassroots movement dead in its tracks.


I can't see why you trust Dean? I'd trust Gephardt a lot more, at least he has a long record of pro-union and pro-working class action. If it wasn't for Clark he probably would have had the AFL-CIO endorsement. In comparison Dean's record is light-weight. Why do you trust Dean?


Why do you just start jamming without so much as reading my entire post? Among all the viable candidates (Dean, Clark, Kerry, Gephardt and maybe Lieberman and Edwards), Dean is the ONLY candidate whom I have ANY REASON WHATSOEVER to trust ONE IOTA.

Dean was speaking against the Iraq War as Saddam's statue was being pulled down. Gephardt was still preening in the Rose Garden at the time, you'll recall, and he still hasn't answered for those 30 pieces of sliver. Meanwhile, Clark was working with a compliant media and changing his level of support for the war with the wind.

Dean delivered nearly universal healthcare to Vermont. Gephardt has done nothing but sit back and watch this nation's healthcare costs and number of uninsured skyrocket -- then propose a huge unfunded mandate boondoggle that would never get through Congress. Meanwhile, Clark was busy selling taxpayers his newest big brother invention -- CAPPS II, the "no fly" list assault on privacy that helps terrorists.

Dean has embraced a grassroots activist movement rooted in antiwar sentiments that literally SCARES THE LIVING SHIT out of the neocon global chessplayer scum who hired you for the sole purpose of jamming it. Meanwhile, Clark was working on the boards of the CFR and NED.

If you gave one shit about shaking up the status quo and returning even a sliver of our ostensible democracy to regular people LIKE ME, you'd have realized long ago that Dean's groundbreaking grassroots campaign offers us the best hope by far -- while Clark's oligarchic selection by the very same establishment that brought us Bush I and Bush II couldn't be more antithetical.

Yes, Dean will probably be forced into doing the oligarchy's bidding whether he likes it or not. But you sure as hell won't see me doing anything other than crying holy hell to kingdom come when he does -- along with as many of his (former) grassroots supporters as I can rally. And, as Dean's activist volunteer base, at the very least we'll have some sway over Dean's decision making in the same way that the religious right holds sway over our current devil worshipping Pretzeldent.

Meanwhile, Prince Neo-Clark, having been installed by the DLC, PNAC and Carlyle crowd and having been elected through THEIR TREACHERY combined with OUR STUPIDITY, IGNORANCE AND APATHY, will owe nothing to anyone except the corrupt establishment that foisted him on us with your paid assistance. While Dean has proved himself to be a nettlesome and (relatively) uncontrollable maverick, Clark has shown himself to be the ultimate mercenary soldier -- willing to personally effect any crime no matter how heinous, just as long as it furthered his own ambitions.


If Dean wins he'll need someone "strong on national security" - and we know Dean has been wanting Clark, or he'll get someone else like Clark. So Dean means more NED, and everyone knows it or should know it. The global chessplayers will be the core of Dean's cabinet. You know that right?


Yeah, that must be why he called Clark "a Republican until 28 days ago." Your "Dean's just as bad" future hypotheticals aren't impressing anyone. As I clearly explained above -- in an extremely cynical fashion, by the way -- Dean is obviously NOT "just as bad."


Are you trying to tell me that Dean is such a good hearted person that I can trust him to put a break on the global chessplayers he hired and end war? Why do you believe that? Because he's a true leader and a healer not a killer? Did you look him in the eye and see his soul? Maybe you trust him because Dean spent his life healing the sick in Vermont while someone like Clark propped up the oil industry that made all those cars in Vermont possible? Clark got his hands dirty, and Dean and his kind lived off of the profits. I'm sure Dean spoke passionately to his friends about his opposition to Vietnam up at the ski cabin.


Can't you read, WhoCountsTheVotes?

Yes, Dean will probably be forced into doing the oligarchy's bidding whether he likes it or not. But you sure as hell won't see me doing anything other than crying holy hell to kingdom come when he does -- along with as many of his (former) grassroots supporters as I can rally. And, as Dean's activist volunteer base, at the very least we'll have some sway over Dean's decision making in the same way that the religious right holds sway over our current devil worshipping Pretzeldent.

Meanwhile, Prince Neo-Clark, having been installed by the DLC, PNAC and Carlyle crowd and having been elected through THEIR TREACHERY combined with OUR STUPIDITY, IGNORANCE AND APATHY, will owe nothing to anyone except the corrupt establishment that foisted him on us with your paid assistance. While Dean has proved himself to be a nettlesome and (relatively) uncontrollable maverick, Clark has shown himself to be the ultimate mercenary soldier -- willing to personally effect any crime no matter how heinous, just as long as it furthered his own ambitions.


America is running a huge empire. We need someone who can keep it from getting bigger and keep it from destroying us.


And I presume you think Prince Neo-Clark, the ultimate mercenary soldier -- who has been proven to himself more than willing to personally effect any crime no matter how heinous, is just the man for the job?


I guess they take him more seriously now that he's run a good campaign. I'm not trying to fool anyone, nor am I fooling myself. I guess I'm not a doughy-eyed neophyte who thinks Dean is the most super teriffic politician ever that really care about the people!


Cut it with the ridiculous straw men already. I don't trust Dean any further than his grassroots movement can throw him. However, all things are relative, and the lesser evil is surely in order now more than ever. Furthermore, Dean's grassroots campaign quite clearly offers regular people more real hope of a real shift in power than anyone else's -- which is exactly why you've been paid to jam it. Can't have the rabble thinking they can make a difference, now can we? That's why Dean has so thoroughly pissed off the establishment. That's why the establishment sees Dean's campaign model as a severe threat rather than something positive they can harness. The establishment has spent a lot of time convincing us that our efforts don't make any difference and our voices don't matter. I sincerely hope you are receiving your fair share.

[madfloridian]

343. Another "Dean supporters are young and idealist" post.

Me, too, not young. Very jaded. A Dean supporter.

[TLM]

139. Oh please, you defense of Clark is that Dean MIGHT hire

some people who are part of the NED... but you ignore the fact CLARK IS A DIRECTOR OF THE NED!


How is it that Dean is evil because you insist he MIGHT hire people from this oraganization, yet Clark gets a pass for being a DIRECTOR of this organization?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

159. Democrats love NED

and they always have. They voted to fund it every year. Dean hasn't said a damn thing about it, and he's relying on you people to scare Democrats from Clark, since after all Clark is the Big Bad Scary Military Killer that bails your companies' ass out of all their problems, while your bosses get rich and mouth liberal platitudes. And then you have to gall to slime him for doing your dirty work. Disgusting.

More typical slime from Rich White Liberals who can't be bothered to get their own hands dirty. I can't wait until the revolution when we hang your benefactors from lampposts, and don't think it's isn't coming either.

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

170. I think you mean "Dean went skiing instead of fighting the Vietnam Warr"

Didn't he get a nice medical deferment just like Rush Limbaugh - no big deal, most of the rich people got medical deferments - didn't Dean even get his own private doctor to do the medical tests?

While regular Americans fought and died, Dean went skiing, and mouthed anti-war platitudes from the slopes. Give me a f%$#ing break.

[TLM]

138. Can't defend Clark so attack Dean...

Yeah Dean is just as bad because he isn't a director of the NED nor is he a lobbyist for Henry Kissinger... but he wasn't born dirt poor so he's evil. He lived on Park Ave. so clearly he is just as bad as the guy who works for Kissinger and is partners with the head of Carlyle in a group that funds anti-democratic coups.

Tell me something WHo... is there ANYTHING Clark could do that would cause you to admit you were wrong and he's not the great progressive liberal hope that so many were duped into thinking?

I get the feeling Clark could come out in a fucking KKK robe and rape an 8 year old boy on stage, and when called on it you would make excuses for Clark and attack Dean to try and change the subject.

[TLM]

134. Well which is worse in you mind...

Dean not destroying the NED, or Clark serving as one of their directors with Kissinger and the head of the carlyle group?


I would also like to see Dean take this group out... but he isn;t exatly in a postion to do that right now, maybe once he is in office.

But what Dean will or will not do is really moot in the face of the fact Clark is a director of this group.

[goforit]

246. Hmmmm.....he needs to wait on this, because.....

You don't want to piss off the CIA too soon.

He needs to wait and see how all the ducks line up before
he starts accusing him.

[Renew Deal]

24. Here is the registrar info for Soberania.

Domain ID:D2503621-LRMS
Domain Name:SOBERANIA.INFO
Created On:05-Dec-2002 19:36:20 UTC
Last Updated On:29-Apr-2003 06:36:00 UTC
Expiration Date:05-Dec-2004 19:36:20 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:R160-LRMS
Status:ACTIVE
Status:OK
Registrant ID:C2747840-LRMS
Registrant Name:Asamblea de Accionistas Originarios de Pdvsa
Registrant Street1:Av La estancia Centro, Comercial Tamanaco, 1 etapa, Of 20-12
Registrant City:Urb Chuao, Caracas
Registrant State/Province:CARACAS
Registrant Postal Code:1062
Registrant Country:VE
Registrant Email:[e-mail]
Admin ID:C55380-LRMS
Admin Name:Ayuda Nodo50
Admin Organization:Nodo50: Altavoz por la Libertad de Expresion
Admin Street1:c/Hileras,4 2o9
Admin City:Madrid
Admin State/Province:MADRID
Admin Postal Code:28013
Admin Country:ES
Admin Phone:[phone]
Admin Email:[e-mail]
Billing ID:C3134705-LRMS
Billing Name:Santiago Botana Villoldo
Billing Organization:Nodo50
Billing Street1:Hileras 4, 2o 9
Billing City:Madrid
Billing State/Province:MADRID
Billing Postal Code:28013
Billing Country:ES
Billing Phone:[phone]
Billing Email:[e-mail]
Tech ID:C3134705-LRMS
Tech Name:Santiago Botana Villoldo
Tech Organization:Nodo50
Tech Street1:Hileras 4, 2o 9
Tech City:Madrid
Tech State/Province:MADRID
Tech Postal Code:28013
Tech Country:ES
Tech Phone:[phone]
Tech Email:[e-mail]
Name Server:REVOLWARE.NODO50.ORG
Name Server:SEISDEDOS.NODO50.ORG

[bhunt70]

27. look at a list of the fellows past and current to see the real picture.

Chaihark Hahm, (November 2001 - August 2002)
Constitutionalism and Democracy in South Korea
Dr. Hahm's project focuses on constitutional review and democracy in South Korea. He examines the role of the Korean Constitutional Court in building democracy in South Korea, using a comparative framework that considers the influence of political culture and cultural traditions

Charlie James Hughes, (May 2002 - August 2002)
A Practitioner's Handbook on Civic Education Initiatives
Charlie Hughes is the director and "driving force" behind the Forum for Democratic Initiatives (FORDI) in Sierra Leone. His project focuses on civic education initiatives in the United States which can be applied in Sierra Leone

Ramin Jahanbegloo, (October 2001 - August 2002 )
Intellectuals and Democracy in Iran
Dr. Jahanbegloo's project focuses on the role of Iranian intellectuals in promoting Iranian democracy, including the attitudes of youth and young professionals in Iran today

Yuriy Krynytskyy, (April - August 2002)
Political Technologies and the Promotion of Democracy in Ukraine
Mr. Krynytskyy is a young activist from Kharkiv, Ukraine, who serves as press secretary and head of a district division of the "Rukh" party (People's Movement of Ukraine).

Ndubisi Obiorah, (June - August 2002)
Corruption and Democracy in Africa: A Comparative Perspective
Mr. Obiorah is a Nigerian human rights lawyer who has worked for HURILAWS, the Human Rights Law Service in Lagos


Adotei Akwei, Ghana
Governance, Repression, and Human Rights in Africa
Visiting Fellow, July - December 2003
Mr. Akwei is Senior Advocacy Director for Africa at Amnesty International USA, serving as his organization's chief spokesperson, strategist, and liaison with the U.S. government, media, and the general public on African human rights issues and U.S. foreign policy toward Africa

Ladan Boroumand, Iran
Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in Iran
Visiting Fellow, October 2002 - September 2003
Dr. Ladan Boroumand is director of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation for the Promotion of Human Rights and Democracy in Iran. She earned her doctorate in history from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, where she published La guerre des principes (1999), a book exploring the tensions during the French Revolution between the rights of man and the sovereignty of the nation. Her project examines the prospects for democracy in Iran from a historical perspective.
*********************************************************************

So its bad to be connected with the NED why?
There are probably 50-75 of these entries, how about looking them up.


People should actually read before they start throwing out idiocy.

[FubarFly]

29. What does that have to do with the NED and Venezuelan coup?

:shrug:

[stickdog]

36. Now you are defending the NED!

Typical Clarkie.

Why don't you just go all out and work for Bush's re-election?

[Renew Deal]

41. My question is...

are you working this hard against every other candidate or just Clark? You are good, can you get me some dirt on Dean and Bush while you are at it?

[stickdog]

51. Bush is the scariest. Clark is the next most scary.

I trust Dean and Kucinich the most because I think they'd need to worry about turning their highly involved, anti-war activist support base against them if either were to win.

But I sort of take after Fox Mulder on the trust thing since 11/2000.

[fla nocount]

59. Ike was afraid of both though he did list the military first. n/t

*

[fla nocount]

60. Ike was afraid of them both though he did list the military first. n/t

*

[TLM]

140. Um and if Dean is not as dirty as Clark or Bush...

with regard to carlyle group, world bank, coups, and working for kissinger... then what?

[ozone_man]

143. My hunch is that this is why the DLC (and Carlisle group)

don't want Dean. They can't control him. I was hoping that some of the missing pieces of this puzzle would show up, and it looks like they are. I shudder to think that Clark could be in the same group as HK and Carlucci.

Maybe someone should e-mail this to Michael Moore (FYI), being a Clark advocate. It would be interesting to hear his take on this.

[bhunt70]

42. wrong again.

I havent made my mind up who I will support for the democratic nominee but thanks for playing.

some of you act exactly like the right. The tactics are the same but the viewpoints are different.

[stickdog]

52. Yeah, just like the right.

Defending the indefensible.

[bhunt70]

54. actually

Im not defending the indefensible. Im keeping an open mind on who I will be voting for in the primary unlike some who have gone the route of pick your candidate and mudsling the rest.

[Eloriel]

100. Yeah, front groups usually have some real benign --

or benign-sounding -- things going on within them that they're very happy to promote.

I've known about the NED for a while, and certainly not for the good they do.

I don't see any way to defend Clark on this (or any of a dozen other things, but that's another subject probably).

Eloriel

[Eloriel]

32. Do you have a link for the Corn piece?

Excellent work.

One of Bill Clinton's two "stars of the Democratic party," huh?

Eloriel

[stickdog]

38. Here's the Corn link from The Nation. Sorry, I didn't realize

I hadn't included it until the editting period had already expired:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20020805&s=corn

[kiahzero]

93. And here's what Corn has to say about the NED

The endowment ... has been involved in both questionable and praiseworthy projects. It awarded a large grant to a student group linked to an outlawed extreme-right paramilitary outfit in France, helped finance the development of conservative parties in countries where democracy was doing just fine and played a heavy-handed role in Nicaragua's 1990 elections. In the late 1980s it aided the pro-democracy opposition in Chile and antiapartheid organizations in South Africa. But even if its programs have indeed enhanced democracy on occasion, NED overall has long been problematic, as it has handed taxpayer dollars to private groups (such as the two major parties) to finance their overseas initiatives and has conducted controversial programs that could be viewed abroad as actions of the US government. What might the reaction be here, if the British government funded an effort to improve the Democratic Party's get-out-the-vote operation in Florida?

Is it perfect? No, far from it. But it's done good things too. So to try and cast this as a new PNAC is a little over the top, in my opinion (and apparently in David Corn's opinion as well).

From reading the article (admittedly, I skimmed it), it seems like a large portion of the blame could fairly be allocated to the White House, rather than the NED. Did I misread it?

[fla nocount]

34. So 25,000 @ DU know what 20,000 have always suspected.

Clarks politics jive with his career choice. How does the country get informed?

[lostnfound]

68. Get it to commondreams, for a start? And Democracy Now?

[Renew Deal]

35. So Clark is responsible for the venezualan coup?

Where is that thread that said that he is responsible for the Spanish inquisition and shooting JFK?

[dkf]

39. Would you have a problem if he participated in this coup?

Just curious.

[Renew Deal]

44. I'd have to know more...

This is an organization that I didn't remember hearing about before tonight. A quick search brings up positive articles about NED. I have found a recent commendation for them by Bush* from whitehouse.gov. They are funded by congress, and I have a grasp on Clarks world view. He fights for human rights; otherwise, he tries to avoid fights. Now I know what you could say about Bush giving a commendation, but those are largely symbolic.

[dkf]

53. NYT Article on the coup

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0425-03.htm

U.S. Bankrolling Is Under Scrutiny for Ties to Chávez Ouster
by Christopher Marquis

WASHINGTON — In the past year, the United States channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to American and Venezuelan groups opposed to President Hugo Chávez, including the labor group whose protests led to the Venezuelan president's brief ouster this month.
The funds were provided by the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit agency created and financed by Congress. As conditions deteriorated in Venezuela and Mr. Chávez clashed with various business, labor and media groups, the endowment stepped up its assistance, quadrupling its budget for Venezuela to more than $877,000.

While the endowment's expressed goal is to promote democracy around the world, the State Department's human rights bureau is examining whether one or more recipients of the money may have actively plotted against Mr. Chávez. The bureau has put a $1 million grant to the endowment on hold pending that review, an official said.

"We wanted to make certain that U.S. government resources were not going to underwrite the unconstitutional overthrow of the government of Venezuela," said the official, who occupies a midlevel job in the department and asked not to be identified. The deputy spokesman for the State Department, Philip Reeker, said he was unaware of the proposed grant.

[Zuni]

99. This sounds fair

I do not believe that the endowment was supporting the coup actively and knowingly.
They might have encouraged democratic opposition to Chavez, but that is different than a military overthrow.

[Eloriel]

103. Oh, please

Is English not your native language or something?

It says NED was involved in black and white.

I said in another post I've been aware of NED for a while, and not in a good way. My impression is that NED has been a way for the U.S. to do its dirty work under a lofty-sounding name, without Congress authorizing funds DIRECTLY for such funny business, and thus keeping its hands "clean."

Eloriel

[Zuni]

111. no, it did not

It said the NED had a meeting with a bunch of people and one of them was a major figure in the Coup. Apparently people in Chavez's administration, labor unions and others were there too.

Doesn't prove to me that they supported a military coup.

[stickdog]

115. Yeah. And it no one has proved that Saddam wasn't an

imminent threat to the the United States, either.

Use your head. What in the hell do you think the purpose of Reagan's NED is? To innocently spread "democracy" or to encourage regimes friendly to US "interests"?

What does the history of the organization tell us?

[stickdog]

46. Right next to the ones that say he's "responsible" for

CAPPS II:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7380-2003Sep26.html

And War Crimes:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/COH309A.html

Man, this guy is a regular cigarette smoking man, ain't he?

[Renew Deal]

48. See this is what I mean...

Capps II is one issue, but he was also mentioned to be sensitive to the issue of rights in that article. As far as war crimes, you know better.

[stickdog]

57. CAPPS II is an indefensible abomination. Clark should be

drawn and quartered for cashing in to lobby for it, IMHO.

[roughsatori]

47. Kick NT

[zeemike]

62. Dam Stickdog

Why do you keep bring up the past?
Didn’t Clark say he was a democrat? Isn’t that good enough for you?
Sure he is in some scary kind of group but so what they all do it don’t they?
Stop looking into his past, you are just causing trouble.

[Name removed]

65. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

66. "Clarkfarts"

charming :puke:

[dkf]

67. Salon 4/02: Josh Marshall on Venezuelan coup

http://www.salon.com/politics/bushed/2002/04/17/venezuela/index.html

Bush's Latin diplomacy goes south
The White House is embarrassed after the State Department's Latin American specialist pointedly fails to condemn the Venezuela coup -- and the coup then collapses.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joshua Micah Marshall

April 17, 2002 | For a generation, the United States has been lecturing Latin Americans about the importance of democracy and the rule of law. But last week at the State Department the advice apparently had to go in the other direction.

On Friday afternoon, less than a day after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was overthrown in what later turned out to be an unsuccessful military-backed coup d'etat, Otto Reich, the assistant secretary of state for Latin America, summoned senior Latin American diplomats to the State Department to discuss the sudden turn of events in the oil-rich South American country. For months last year, Reich's nomination was stalled in the Senate because, among many reasons, Democratic senators feared Reich was less than fully committed to democracy in Latin America. (Reich had a reputation as a Latin American hard-liner in several posts he held in the Reagan administration.) According to accounts provided by Latin American diplomats who attended the meeting, Reich's performance last Friday would have done little to assuage those fears.

Present at the meeting with Reich were ambassadors and other senior diplomats from most countries in Latin America, and Roger Noriega, America's ambassador to the Organization of American States. Reich began by handing out copies of a State Department press release that blamed Chavez's overthrow on Chavez himself and denied that any coup had even occurred. Reich then gave a tortured reading of the Venezuelan constitution in an attempt to illustrate that Chavez's apparent military overthrow really wasn't unconstitutional at all -- an explanation some diplomats at the meeting thought could only have been rationalized by the coup plotters themselves. Neither Reich nor other State Department officials would comment on the meeting.

Chavez had become increasingly unpopular with the Bush administration, with his pro-Cuba politics and recent threats to the independence of the country's state-owned oil company, which is the third-largest foreign supplier to the United States. Word of his ouster was also greeted positively by Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer.

--more

[Dover]

69. Some things about Clark and NED

Clark is a member of CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), a Washington think tank/research organization whose membership includes people such as Sam Nunn, Brzezinski, Kissinger, Albright, etc. You can check out their membership at the web site and do a search on Clark and the NED.
One thing is certain. Clark is an insider in a big way.

http://www.csis.org


Also this from 1993 article on NED (copyrighted by the Heritage Foundation):

The NED's Role. The National Endowment for Democracy is a private, non-profit organization established by Congress in 1983 to strengthen democratic institutions and foster democratic values throughout the world. Through its grant program, NED enlists the help of private American groups to assist democratic reformers abroad. It is active in almost 100 countries, working through some 75 American grant recipients, including NED's four "core" institutions, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the Free Trade Union Institute, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. The NED has played a vital role in providing aid to democratic movements in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and elsewhere. It has dispatched experts to help emerging democracies assemble the building blocks necessary to sustain a stable democratic system: representative political parties, a free market economy, independent trade unions, and a free press. NED-affiliated advisers help formulate election laws, train poll workers, monitor elections, and teach activists how to build political parties...>
http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/EM360.cfm





MORE NED SITES: http://www.google.com/search?q=national+endowment+for+democracy&btnG=Google+Search

[MSchreader]

70. Francis Fukuyama = PNAC

Fukuyama is listed a member of the Board of Directors of the NED. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Project for a New American Century, and is the schmuck that came up with the "end of history" nonsense.

I almost hate to bring this up, because of the inevitable flame war it will generate. But, facts are facts -- and you shouldn't blame me for pointing them out.

Martin

[phegger]

71. You know what?

I DON'T CARE.

I want Bush OUT. It's damage control, pure and simple. If it turns out that Clark is the best person to do that, so be it. It's not that I don't care about Venezuelan democracy, but I have to save my own first. So sue me.


-ph :shrug:

[lostnfound]

74. Our LatinAmerica Policy WILL Destroy OUR Democracy

The future: militant insurgents all over LatinAmerica will be P*SSED off (ANGRY) over US repression of their democracies and US support for their torturing dictators.

How long before they resort to the only weapon they have? How long before they join forces with the America-haters in the Arab world?

With Venezuela and with Colombia, our government is sowing the seeds of HATE.

With SOA-trained torturers, with defoliant sprayed from helicopters, with contempt for twice-elected leftist like Chavez -- US policy is currently on a path to h*ll in our OWN HEMISPHERE. Our kids won't be fighting on the other side of the world; they will be fighting close to home.

[phegger]

76. I absolutely agree with what you're saying--

I'm just afraid after BushCo get through there won't be anything left to fight FOR.

I'm encouraged by Lula. I'm encouraged by Chavez. I'm encouraged by revolts over privatization in Bolivia and Argentina. I don't think these people need to blow us up. They just need to give the collective finger to IMF and the whole cabal, and it seems that's what they're doing. Frankly, I hope we follow their example.



-ph :smoke:

[Zuni]

106. wait

in Colombia we are friendly to the elected government. Venezula seems to be supporting the FARC extremists however. FARC are hardcore communists with little support from the general populace and a reputation for wanton brutality. They are also the world's most prolific kidnappers and hostage takers. They are worse than the drug lord armies of the 1980s.
Chavez is not popular in Columbia, and he is hated by many in Venezula.
Chavez may also support Arab extremists, and apparently several groups have cells in his country (with or without his approval I do not know)

I do not support military coups, but honestly it really does not bother me if the US gives money to democratic political parties. It may be kind of sleazy but politics is sleaze. I suspect there are a lot of foreign donations and foreign agents influencing our elections. The KGB covertly funded Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Walter Mondale in 1984 and had agents in both of their campaigns.

[Name removed]

116. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Judi Lynn]

72. As much light as people can shed on the NED, the better!

Concerning NED funds going to Chavez' antagonists:

(snip) The NED funnels its money overseas either through direct grants to foreign organizations or through four NED core institutes: the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), the International Republican Institute (IRI), and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI). (snip)

(snip) In the Name of Democracy

However, the IRI evidently began opposing Chavez even before his 1998 election. Prior to that year's congressional and presidential elections, the IRI worked with Venezuelan organizations critical of Chavez to run newspaper ads, TV, and radio spots that several observers characterize as anti-Chavez.

The IRI has also flown groups of Chavez opponents to Washington to meet with U.S. officials. In March 2002, a month before Chavez's brief ouster, one such group of politicians, union leaders, and activists traveled to DC to meet with U.S. officials, including members of Congress and State Department staff. The trip came at the time that several military officers were calling for Chavez' resignation and talk of a possible coup was widespread.

Trip participants said the U.S. officials expressed support only for a constitutional departure for Chavez. The Assembly of Educators' Carvajal, who participated in the IRI trip, said that bringing varied government opponents together in Washington accelerated the unification of the opposition. "The democratic opposition began to become cohesive," he said. "We began to become a team." Shortly after returning from that trip, Carvajal said, opposition organizations "precipitated" a plan of action against Chavez.
(Mike Ceaser, Americas Program, December 9, 2002)
(snip/)

http://forums.transnationale.org/viewtopic.php?t=785

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WE ACTUALLY HAVE TO PAY FOR THIS THROUGH OUR TAXES.

[Dover]

73. From another site.....

The Nicaraguan National Opposition Union (UNO) that defeated the Sandinistas was designed and sponsored to the tune of $30 million by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a foreign aid programme founded by President Ronald Reagan and funded by the US government to "promote democracy abroad." Source: Haiti Support Group, "Old Tricks, New Dog: US "Democracy Enhancement", in "This Week in Haiti", Wed, December 22-29, 1998 * Vol. 16, No. 40 (the English section of HAITI

...snip...

The International Republican Institute (IRI), a NED subsidiary, has been active in so-called `democracy enhancement' since 1995.

This April, after months of organising meetings and conferences, its efforts bore fruit when 26 small right wing, Duvalierist, and what have been described as "ex-Lavalas opportunist" political parties formed the Haitian Conference of Political Parties (CHPP).

Dupuy characterised the activities of the IRI as an attempt to "peddle a `democracy' that is not a real popular consultation but an exercise in propaganda and advertising in which they transform the electoral process into one between those who have money and those who don't." The IRI is just one of a number of organisations that will receive money from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) which is engaged in a ten-year programme entitled `More Genuinely Inclusive Democratic Government.' In its submission to the US Congress for funding for Haiti for the financial year 1999, USAID requested some $170 million, of which $38 million will be allocated to `Democracy'.

Other recipients of the `Democracy' funding include the International Criminal Investigations Training and Assistance Programme, an institution founded by the FBI in 1986, and run by the US Justice and State departments, which is training the new Haitian police force; the US law firm, Checci and Company, which is running the judicial reform programme; and the America's Development Foundation (ADF), which since the late 1980s in Haiti has channelled funds from USAID and NED to right wing trade unions, conservative media outfits, and apologists for the 1991-4 coup regime, and now concentrates on "strengthening democratic values and processes" among civil society organisations, and `helping' newly elected councillors and mayors.

Working alongside the IRI and ADF in the task of `grooming' Haiti's nascent democracy, and also receiving USAID funding, is another organisation, Associates in Rural Development, known in Haiti as Asosye. The particular focus for Asosye is the system for decentralised local democracy based on municipal and rural councils and assemblies. This system was created by the 1987 Constitution in an attempt to provide a counter-weight to the excessive control exerted by the central government in the capital, but elections for these positions have yet to be run in full....

http://www.geocities.com/~virtualtruth/ned.htm

[Dover]

75. All about the NED...pros and cons...ties to the CIA, USIA (must read)

this is the best info I've found on the NED so far. Excellent article....must read:

THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY OF US

The post-Watergate enquiries into the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US exposed details of its covert political activities in other countries in order to promote US foreign policy objectives. Amongst such activities were the secret funding of individuals, political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) favourable to US interests and funneling of money to counter the activities of those considered anti-US.

After taking over as the President in January, 1977, Mr.Jimmy Carter banned such activities and imposed strict limits on the CIA's covert operations in foreign countries. During the election campaign of 1980, Mr.Ronald Reagan used effectively against Mr.Carter the argument that the post-Vietnam and post-Watergate decline of the US under Mr.Carter was due to the emasculation of its military and intelligence apparatus.

After his election in November, 1980, and before his taking-over as the President in January, 1981, Mr.Reagan appointed a transition group headed by the late William Casey, an attorney and one of his campaign managers, who was to later take over as the CIA Director, to recommend measures for strengthening the USA's intelligence capability abroad.

One of its recommendations was to revive covert political activities. Since there might have been opposition from the Congress and public opinion to this task being re-entrusted to the CIA, it suggested that this be given to an NGO with no ostensible links with the CIA.

The matter was further examined in 1981-82 by the American Political Foundation's Democracy Programme Study and Research Group and, finally, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) was born under a Congressional enactment of 1983 as a "non-profit, non-governmental, bipartisan, grant-making organisation to help strengthen democratic institutions around the world."

Though it is projected as an NGO, it is actually a quasi-governmental organisation because till 1994 it was run exclusively from funds voted by the Congress (average of about US $ 16 million per annum in the 1980s and now about US $ 30 million) as part of the budget of the US Information Agency (USIA). Since 1994, it has been accepting contributions from the private sector too to supplement the congressional appropriations.

Thirty per cent of the budgetary allocations constitute the discretionary fund of the NED to be distributed directly by it to overseas organisations and the balance is distributed through what are called four "core organisations"---the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the Free Trade Union Institute (FTUI).

In 1994, the NED set up two other organisations called the International Forum for Democratic Studies (IFDS) and the Democracy Resource Centre (DRC), both largely funded by the private sector.

Since its inception, the NED and its affiliates have been mired in controversy in the US itself as well as abroad. Amongst its strongest supporters in the US is the Heritage Foundation of Washington DC, a conservative think tank, which played an active role in influencing the policies of the Reagan and Bush Administrations.

It brought out two papers on the justification for the NED, when questions were raised in the US on the continued need for it after the collapse of the communist regimes of East Europe. In the first paper of July 8,1993, (Executive Memorandum No. 360) it described the NED as "an important weapon in the war of ideas" and said:" The NED has played a vital role in providing aid to democratic movements in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Nicaragua, Vietnam and elsewhere..... Communist dictatorships still control China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam. Moreover, ex-communists masquerading as nationalists continue to dominate several of the Soviet successor states. The NED can play an important role in assisting those countries in making the turbulent transition to democracy..... Local political activists often prefer receiving assistance from a non-governmental source, as aid from a US government agency may undermine their credibility in the eyes of their countrymen."..>>>MORE

http://www.saag.org/papers2/paper115.html

[Zorra]

77. School of the Americas. Anyone know what this is?

What kind of courses does the School of the Americas teach? Does anyone know?

General CLARK. I will tell you that the IMET program is probably the most cost-effective means we have of engaging these countries. We need to bring their military leaders here at multiple levels. They need to see not only how America is operating and what American public attitudes are, they need to see how the Armed Forces in the United States think and train, the fact that we are nonpolitical, the fact that we are dedicated, the fact that we are a noncorrupt Armed Forces, the fact that we subsist on the public funding, so to speak, and don't try to line our pockets outside of office.

All of these need to be seen up close and understood to be believed, and we are teaching not only the technical and tactical aspects of military training but we teach democracy and human rights and many other programs through the IMET program. I can tell you that all of our instruction in U.S. service schools and institutions has been very, very carefully screened, especially the studies in the School of the Americas with which I am very familiar with my previous assignment. There is nothing going on in these institutions that you and the United States Congress wouldn't be extraordinarily proud of when you see the enormous leverage the United States gets in terms of bringing school attendees around to understanding American society and the way the American Armed Forces work. We make no apologies. We consider that we are an outstanding example and IMET is a way to show it.
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has076000.000/has076000_0f.htm

[stickdog]

88. Where General Clark earned his doctorate?

Just a wild guess.

[Zuni]

102. Not specifics

but I suspect they teach military things.

I think the fact that many of the graduates were degenerate thugs makes it seem like they teach moral decay and classes in evil there.

Unfortunatly most of the stuff the SOA is blamed for is stuff that normally isn't taught anywhere.

[Eloriel]

108. Wrong.

Study up. SOA (now named something completely different to evade all the bad press) has taught torture and a bunch of other very nasty things for a long while. This isn't speculation -- actual training manuals have been released.

Eloriel

[Zuni]

109. You mean the Contra manual in 1984?

That is the only one I know and it could have been written by Mao or Vo Nguyen Giap because it said essentially the same thing.

How do you teach 'torture'?

[Say_What]

132. Enlighten yourself

<clips>

Background: The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News.)

On January 17, 2001 the SOA was replaced by the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC).
The result of a Department of Defense proposal included in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal 2001, the name-change measure passed when the House of Representatives defeated a bi-partisan amendment to close the SOA and conduct a congressional investigation by a narrow ten vote margin. (See Talking Points, Critique of New School, Vote Roll Call.)

http://www.soaw.org/new/

---

<clips>

Final Group of Human Rights Advocates Sentenced to Federal Prison for Civil Disobedience to Close School of the Americas

Nuns, Priests, Veterans, Professors and Students Testified Against Double Standard in War on Terrorism, Put SOA and U.S. Foreign Policy on Trial

Columbus, GA – Thirty-five human rights advocates from across the country were tried this week in federal court for civil disobedience to close what they call a terrorist training camp on U.S. soil: the School of the Americas, renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (SOA/WHISC). Graduates of the controversial combat training school for Latin American soldiers continue to be implicated in human rights atrocities throughout Latin America.

The defendants were among 10,000 who gathered in November to call for the closure of the SOA/WHISC. They were part of a group of 96 who peacefully crossed onto Ft. Benning, site of the school. The 35 are the last of a total of 83 from this group to be adjudicated (Forty-two defendants were tried and convicted January 27-29). So far all of the defendants have either pled or were found guilty of trespass. The trial of the last two defendants is expected to conclude this afternoon. Sentences have ranged from twelve months probation to six months in federal prison with fines.

The defendants included nine Catholic nuns, a priest, a reverend, seven veterans, union organizers, professors and students.

“The SOA is out of alignment with the values of the American people,” said Judy Bierbaum, a defendant from Albuquerque, New Mexico. “Patriotism is not about slapping a flag in the window if that’s where it ends – it’s about calling our country to task.”

http://www.soaw.org/new/pressrelease.php?id=55

[Say_What]

130. Speech by CLARK at SOA Graduation

Command & General Staff Officer Course Graduation. Wesley Clark, Command-in-Chief, U.S. Southern Command

<clips>

...I HAVE BEEN IN MY POSITION NOW FOR SOME SIX MONTHS. I HAVE VISITED MOST OF THE COUNTRIES OF THE HEMISPHERE. I HAVE MET SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS' GRADUATES WHO ARE AIDES TO THE HIGHEST MILITARY LEADERS, AND I HAVE MET SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS' GRADUATES WHO ARE THE HIGHEST MILITARY LEADERS. I THINK YOU KNOW IN YOUR COMMAND STRUCTURES WHO THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS' GRADUATES ARE AND YOU KNOW THAT THEY ARE RESPECTED.

...I'VE HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF VISITING MANY OF THE MILITARY LEADERS IN THIS REGION AND THEY'RE VERY IMPRESSIVE. I'VE BEEN PARTICULARLY IMPRESSED BY THE ENORMOUS PROGRESS THAT HAS BEEN MADE IN THE PREPARATION AND EXECUTION OF PEACEKEEPING MISSIONS.

...PLEASE TAKE A MINUTE TO SAY HELLO AND TELL ME HOW YOU'RE DOING. TELL YOUR COMMANDING OFFICERS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO HEAR FROM YOU BECAUSE I CONSIDER THAT YOU AND I ARE PART OF A TEAM WORKING TOGETHER FOR THE FUTURE OF EACH OF OUR NATIONS. AND I HOPE YOU WILL CONVINCE YOUR COMMANDERS THAT YOU NEED TO COME TO MIAMI AS A LIAISON OFFICER WITH SOUTHCOM.

AGAIN CONGRATULATIONS AND THANK YOU FOR BEING WITH US AT THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/usarsa/SPEECH/cgscspch.htm

---

Background on SOA

<clips>
Background: The US Army School of Americas (SOA), based in Fort Benning, Georgia, trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counter-insurgency, and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the SOA are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. Among the SOA's nearly 60,000 graduates are notorious dictators Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, Juan Velasco Alvarado of Peru, Guillermo Rodriguez of Ecuador, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia. Lower-level SOA graduates have participated in human rights abuses that include the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero and the El Mozote Massacre of 900 civilians. (See Grads in the News.)

http://www.soaw.org/new/

[seventhson]

223. This Should Be a Thread on its OWN: Say What!!!

Would you PLEASE make this a thread on its own?

[catforclark2004]

232. It's a fake

can't you tell???? how naive!

[stickdog]

238. How can you see the monitor with all that sand in your eyes? (NT)

[Forkboy]

257. Well I'm convinced cat

:crazy:

[Say_What]

324. Fake my a$$ --- it's from SOA's SPEECH FILE

Here's the link to their main page, which says they shut down in December 2000. Click the Speech icon on the right side of the page.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/usarsa/MAIN.HTM


http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/usarsa/speech/speech.htm

[Say_What]

326. How 'bout you start one, here's the link

Click the Speech icon on the right side and then scroll to the bottom of the speeches, or you can do a find for "Clark" on the speech file page. It was in 1996.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usamhi/usarsa/MAIN.HTM

[DemocratSinceBirth]

78. Take The Pledge....

I will not speak ill of another Democrat. I will reserve all my criticism for Bush and his fanatical junta who have hijacked this republic.


Peace 03

Brian

[Dover]

79. I am feeling more and more that there's NO difference between

these parties. And Clark is just the culmination of the combined interests of both parties. Have you read the thread? If it doesn't creep you out, something is VERY wrong. This whole election is beginning to look like a sham to me and might well explain a lot of things about why the Dems have been so reluctant to challenge several things...including the Black Box Voting issue. Interesting that one of the duties of the NED is to conduct fair elections (although they were caught trying to illegally fund their preferred candidates in South America).

So don't give me that Party loyalty stuff if there are only methods, rather than definitive policy differences, separating these two parties.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

80. Would Al Gore Have Invaded Iraq

and involved us in their nightmare for at least a generation?


Don't take the pledge.... Let the perfect be the enemy of the good.... It will be your kids and your neighbor's kids who will be doing the dying in Bush's wars....

[stickdog]

89. Decency is the enemy of expediency.

We're not looking for perfect here.

[TLM]

142. Exactly... not looking for perfect... I'm just looking for a real democrat

that isn;t a fucking repuke plant that has spent the last several years working for henry kissinger and wokring with the head of the carlyle group to run coups against democratic governments.



Clark is no democrat.. he is a fraud, and it looks as if Graham is in on this too.

Looks like we now have 8 democrats running.

I'm back to wanting Dean/Edwards... a real ticket for real democrats. Not military black ops assholes or DC lobbyist insiders.

[Tinoire]

110. Can't do that either

4 years from now is no time to start being "shocked" about things we can find out right now to avoid a possible fiasco.

Playing nice is what has gotten us in so many messes. Has not enough information been presented about Clark to make you wonder how much more there is and what we might possibly be getting in to?

Being nice is great and I'm all for it but not when it comes to the future of our country and the kind of lives we will lead.

America is currently on the edge of a precipice and we can't let the same people who brought us to this continue to control our politics. Do you really thing they're above infiltrating one party to hedge their bets? Not that the Democratic party was that pure to begin with... The Republicans didn't do all of this alone--- fat Pentagon budgets and destabilizations of other countries were done with the full support and authorization of Democrats as well.

I can't play nice anymore. We have reaped so much hate in the world. This is no time to go on empty promises. Imagine our streets looking like Tel Aviv's one day as citizens are whisked away to protect the others...

There's a lot to think about... so much at stake... no use playing nice when the Mafia's in town.

2 years from now will be too late and 2 years from now all the people supporting Clark will have disappeared from this board as if they had never existed...

[LWolf]

83. I will not take that pledge.

I'll pledge not to lie, libel, or flame them. But I sure as hell reserve the right to question their record or their stand on the issues. I reserve the right to criticize them if I think they aren't for the good of the party or the country. Why bother to be a member of a party if you can't express your views about where the party is going or should go? Or about what kind of leadership you want? Why bother to vote at all?

[GeronimoSkull]

84. No Way, No Day

:cry:

[HFishbine]

85. Sorry SinceBirth

Can't do it. If we don't fully vett our possibilities now, Rove & Co. will do it for us next October, when it will be too late.

[Dover]

162. I think there's more going on here than simply a Republican plant

Afterall, Clark is Clinton's 'star'. Dean has called him friend, and I'm sure if we continue to dig we'll discover that he represents a "merger" of BOTH Parties (though I hesitate to include the progressive arm of the Dems here)...and/or their idiological sponsors in the corporate sector.

[lostnfound]

135. Breaking news! Cheney to run as Democrat ... ;-) n/t

[IndianaGreen]

325. Replacing Bush with another war criminal is not what we want!

And speaking ill is not the same as airing the truth about a candidate, particularly one with suspect human rights credentials as Wesley Clark.

[Rowdyboy]

82. William Blum collaborated with Philip Agee

on "CIA Diary/Inside the Company" which "outed" hundreds of CIA operatives worldwide and led to at least one agent's murder. He has no credibility to me.

[RandomUser]

94. YIKES -- this crap is coming from a journalist who killed CIA agents?

This is getting stupider and stupider. Why are anti-clarkers doing this? Nevermind, I've stopped caring. You vote for your candidate, I'll vote for Clark. When people start presenting the words of someone who killed CIA agents as being unbiased fact, something's wrong.

[Zuni]

101. Phillip Agee worked for the KGB

Phillip Agee was an alcoholic and a lecher who was booted out of the CIA for molesting a diplomats wife.
He then went to the KGB residency in Mexico City and to the Cubans and offered his services.
He began a campaign to 'out' CIA agents all over the world, and recieved funds and information from the KGB.
He was a KGB agent, plain and simple.

This is all in the Mitrokhin Archive--the files from the Soviet Union's KGB that were brought to the UK by Vassili Mitrokhin.

[Judi Lynn]

119. Would you please be so good as to provide some links

to the charges you are making against Phillip Agee?

It's the right thing to do.

[Zuni]

146. I got it from the Mitrokhin Archive

It is a book called Sword and Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive. It is files stolen from KGB Headquarters.

[Say_What]

123. ROTFLMAO!!! More BUSH fantasies

<clips>

AMY GOODMAN: Good to have you with us. Why don't we start off with Larry Johnson's comment with what the Bush's alleged, and your response to this whole scandal that is brewing in Washington.

PHILLIP AGEE: Well, Mr. Johnson is repeating a story put about by the C.I.A. beginning with the Welch assassination in Athens in 1975.

From the moment of that event the C.I.A. tried to put the blame on me because at that time I was involved with quite a lot of other people in a guerrilla journalism campaign to expose the C.I.A.'s operations and its people, especially in western Europe at that time.

George Bush's father came in as C.I.A. director the month following the Welch assassination. As director he presided over the agency as they mounted a campaign throughout western Europe trying to make me appear to be a security threat, a traitor, a Soviet agent, a Cuban agent. All those sorts of things which led to my expulsion from five different NATO countries in the late 1970's.

In fact it was in all based on lies, and to think that I was responsible for the death of any C.I.A. people for their exposures is absolutely false. No one as far as I know of all those people who were exposed as C.I.A. people along with their operations was ever even harassed or threatened. What happened was, their operations were disrupted and that was the purpose of what we were doing.

We were right to do it then, because the U.S. policy at the time executed by the C.I.A. was to support murderous dictatorships around the world, in Greece, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil. That's only to name a few, and we oppose that use of the U.S. intelligence service for those dirty operations.

I'm talking about regimes now that tortured and disappeared people by the thousands.


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/159258

[Zuni]

148. This is complete BS--he is in the KGB files

it is no smear job. He was in the KGB archives, and he worked for the KGB.
Check out the Mitrokhin Archive--which is culled from huge numbers of files stolen from the KGB by a former agent.
This is not a CIA smear job.
He is without a doubt a KGB agent.

[Zuni]

157. Phillip Agee is about as trustworthy as Kim Philby

This is all BS. The fact that Democracy Now would broadcast this man, even after Soviet records show beyond doubt that he worked for the KGB, knowingly risking the lives of many people ---agents--and civilian informers, tells you alot about the intellectual honesty and credibility of the show. I am sure many people were arrested and tortured and killed behind the Iron Curtain thanks to Mr. Agee's info to the KGB.
The fact that Amy Goodman gave him a free pass to spout off information without even trying to show the the man was lying through his teeth shows me a lot about her credibility and Pacifica's in general. She does the same thing with that weasel Ramsey Clark.

[ozone_man]

200. How ironic.

--snip--

PHILLIP AGEE: Well, first you have to realize that this law, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, under which someone in the White House may be indicted, is his father's law.

This is the -- this is a law sought by George Bush senior, when he was C.I.A. director and later as Vice President, he worked hard to get that law passed.

It is the irony of ironies that the law is violated, I believe for the first time in a serious way, by someone working in the office of his own son. This is simply dirty politics, I believe. The ambassador, that is ambassador Wilson, poked a hole in this whole pack of lies that have been concocted to justify the war; and in retaliation, they try to ruin his wife's career and get even with him, you could say that it's dirty politics as usual. But also one has to wonder what Poppa Bush is thinking about the fact that it's his own son's office that has violated the law that he works so hard to get passed.

--snip--

[stickdog]

118. Yeah, the sources are all KGB murderers and the facts they present

are all stupid.

Does that make you feel better?

Good. Now you can safely put your head back under the sand.

[Zuni]

149. Phillip Agee was a KGB agent

And I'll put my head in the sand when you put your tin foil hat back on.

[stickdog]

210. Maybe, maybe not.

But what does Phillip Agee's possible double agent status have to do with Clark, the NED, the School of the Americas, the abortive Venezuelan coup and US "democratic" interventions worldwide since Clark joined the NED?

[Say_What]

122. BULLSHIT--that was BABA BUSHES claim--Agee sued and WON

Agee was on Democracy Now!! yesterday.

<clips>

Many believe the law was passed in direct response to former CIA agent Philip Agee’s blowing the whistle on CIA dirty tricks in his book Inside the Company: CIA Diary George H.W. Bush, who was vice-president when the law was passed, said some of the criticism of the Agency ruined secret U.S. clandestine operations in foreign countries.

So seriously did the Bushes take the crime of exposing CIA operatives that Barbara Bush, in her memoirs, accused Agee of blowing the cover of the CIA Station Chief in Greece, Richard Welch, who was assassinated outside his Athens residence in 1975. Agee sued the former first lady and Mrs. Bush withdrew the statement from additional printings of her book. Still, at a celebration marking the fiftieth anniversary of the CIA, the elder Bush again singled out Agee in his remarks, calling him “a traitor to our country.”

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/10/02/159258

[Judi Lynn]

128. Thanks for shedding some much needed light on this.

It's good to learn that these charges I just read here were already met and challenged long ago.

As always, the right-wing hate spew just keeps on coming, as if nothing had ever happened. Nothing exists for some of these people but them, their Republican main fools, and a whole lot of time to throw around the nonsense they produce.

It sounds preposterous on first hearing, and retarded. Very glad to learn it was officially discharged.

[Zuni]

153. It has nothing to do with hate spew--he is in the KGB's archives as a

defector!
Look it up.
The book is called Sword and Shield: The Mitrokhin Archives

[Zuni]

152. How come he is listed as an agent in the KGB files, smart guy?

He is in there, and he is credit being the CIA's first defector.

Check out the Mitrokhin Archive--it has got all kinds of information of KGB agents.

[andym]

127. more about the NED

Even the conservative Cato Institute considered the NED a "loose cannon" ten years ago

"The National Endowment for Democracy is a foreign policy loose cannon. Promoting democracy is a nebulous objective that can be manipulated to justify any whim of the special-interest groups--the Republican and Democratic parties, organized labor, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce--that control most of NED's funds. As those groups execute their own foreign policies, they often work against American interests and meddle needlessly in the affairs of other countries, undermining the democratic movements NED was designed to assist. Moreover, the end of the Cold War has nullified any usefulness that such an organization might ever have had. There is no longer a rival superpower mounting an effective ideological challenge, and democracy is progressing remarkably well on its own.

NED, which also has a history of corruption and financial mismanagement, is superfluous at best and often destructive. Through the endowment, the American taxpayer has paid for special-interest groups to harass the duly elected governments of friendly countries, interfere in foreign elections, and foster the corruption of democratic movements."

http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027es.html
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027.html

It appears to built in a way to allow democratic, republican parties, organized labor and the chamber of commerce to do their own foreign policy:


"That convoluted organizational structure seems to be based on the premise that government money, if filtered through enough layers of bureaucracy, becomes "private" funding, an illogical and dangerously misleading assumption. In effect, the NED structure allows private organizations (in this case organizations with very distinct and disparate interests) to pursue their own foreign policy agendas with out regard to official policy."

SO what is Clark doing on the board of directors:
My sepculation:
He was placed their along with Holbrook (and Albright who chaired the NED's NDI National Democratic Institute) by Clinton as "Democrats" to help promote the NED's effort to bring down Milosevic in Serbia.

My evidence:
Here is an excerpt of an NED officer quoted on a seeming pro-Milosevic website (not sure):
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/ned-1.htm

"1) Independent media NED programs have helped ensure the survival of a number of independent media and helped break the stranglehold of government-dominated media in Serbia by strengthening influential sources of objective information. NED assistance has enabled newspapers, radio and TV stations to purchase desperately-needed supplies and equipment, including newsprint and broadcast transmitters..."



--------------------------------------------------------------

As to Venezueala, my reading of the Soborenia article is that they were trying to shed light on the NED by naming two of the board's
most prominent members: Clark and Carlucci. Both are well known in South America. They were saying that the board oversees (administers) the NED, not that they administered the Venezuelan affair. Given the structure of the NED, which allows each party, labor and commerce to make their own foreign policy (see above) this is entirely reasonable.

Now, many DU'ers would not work for the NED, even less would they serve on its board of directors... For a general interested in foreign relations, it may be more understandable. Still, it would be good to get Clark's response to what he thought of NEDs involvement in Venezuela.

[TLM]

129. I knew something like this would come up....

You don;t work as a lobbyist for Hennry F-ing Kissinger without having you fingers in some shit in south america.

So now we have Clark with ties to the Calyle Group AND World Bank as well...

Mr. Matthew F. McHugh
(Secretary)
Counselor to the President
The World Bank

The Honorable Frank Carlucci
The Carlyle Group

General Wesley K. Clark
Stephens Group, Inc.


Working with Frank Carlucci, World Bank, Kissinger... and we wonder why Clark didn't want to say he was a democrat?

I'm starting to think it is more and more likely that Clark is the guy that the Carlyle Group, World Bank, PNAC etc. want to get in there to finish the job that Bush can't.

[ozone_man]

131. Holy crap! I think that does it for me,

not that I was ever leaning towards him. But if this is true, I will definitely not support him. I had a feeling there was more hidden stuff like this. Thanks Stickdog.

[ursacorwin]

141. thanks everybody

for the useful information. i hope everyone reads this.

[catforclark2004]

144. Clark to propose closing NED activities and replacing with

Clark to open NED to sunshine by replacing it with a Department to replace it:

YOU WILL HEAR MORE ON THIS SOON................................

Clark Wants More Foreign Aid, New Department to Handle It
Book Faults Bush for Pursuing Notion of American 'Empire'

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A05


A new book by Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general running for president, calls for a major expansion in U.S. foreign assistance programs and establishment of a Department of International Assistance to manage the initiative.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14400-2003Sep28.html

[incapsulated]

155. That's Good BUT...

The NED thing isn't what bothered me anyway. It's a big organization that has people like Meeks and Graham on it, I certainly don't hold them personally responsible for everything it has done.

BUT, The School of the Americas is a HUGE ISSUE for me. That he defended it and spoke at a graduation there gives me terrible feelings of betrayal. It was notorious for spewing out war criminals doing our bidding in Latin America. He simply must address this to have my continued support.

:wtf:

[ozone_man]

202. "major expansion in U.S. foreign assistance programs"

is not a good thing. This is the problem. Whether it is the International Monetary Foundation, or AID, or NED, these organizations are responsible for tremendous problems in the developing countries of the world. They are created to pave the way for U.S. multinational corporations to reap benefits from the natural resources of the countries. For example, rather than promote sustainable agriculture in developing countries, cash crops are promoted that require massive investments in machinery. Consequently, these countries are saddled with huge debts (e.g., to the IMF), with benefits going to the multinational corporations and not internally.

Since the 1950's, the CIA has been performing the function of overthrowing governnments with nationalized assets like Guatemala, Iran, Cuba, etc. Apparently this NED was established to achieve the same goal, but in a more clandestine manner.

If Clark is involved in this (NED) as it appears, and that NED's function is what I suspect that it is, then he is on the side that I have stood against for many years.

I have to suspect that NED's interest in Venezuelan is oil, no?

[stickdog]

213. Thank God Clark, as the ultimate insider, knows exactly how to

"reform" our foreign interventions so they can be both more expansive and more subtlely diabolical.

[FubarFly]

147. Yeah, this is just the stuff we can dig up on our own...

Imagine the real dirt the BFEE has on Clark? :scared:

I have tried to be fair to Clark on this board, but there is little chance I can get past this. There are simply too may connections to people I fear and despise for me to ever be comfortable with Clark. Out of the ten candidates running, there are nine of them I would rather see nominated. Clark is a risk/reward candidate where the risk now far exceeds the reward. If he wins the nomination, I will have to give serious thought to my next course of action. That's all I will say at this time.

[maha]

145. Not even Jesus would be pure enough for some people.

Full disclosure: I'm Buddhist, but still ... Some of the crap I read on this board makes me think NO HUMAN BEING would ever possibly be pure enough for some DUers to be President. In order to get "pure" people in politics, we'll have to raise them in a sterile lab environment so they don't get polluted by actual life or anything.

This is not about compromising ideals; it's about being grown up enough to realize that the road to hell is paved with stupid ideas about ideological purity. Enough already.

[FubarFly]

151. Actually when you have 10 candidates to choose from...

there is nothing wrong with picking the best one.

I don't buy the "electibilty" myth. The candidate that emerges victorious from a tough field of ten, will be strong enough to beat b*sh. For better or worse.

[maha]

166. The best one?

I think several of the candidates are "electable," and if Shrub's approval numbers continue to decline, I am fairly confident he's a one-term president no matter who the Dems nominate. "Electability" is a small factor for me, although having lived through McGovern-Nixon, Mondale-Reagan, and Dukakis-Bush, I don't dismiss it entirely, either.

Here are the candidates in order of MY preference. If you want to see my reasons, go to http://www.mahablog.com/id15.html

1. Clark
2. Dean
(Note: #1 and #2 nearly a tie)
3. Mosley Braun
4. Edwards
5. Kerry
6. Gephardt
7. Graham
8. Sharpton
9. Kucinich
10. Lieberman

Please don't assume you know why I've ordered the candidates this way and try to argue with me about it without reading my reasons first. Once again: http://www.mahablog.com/id15.html

So, if we're going to elect the BEST candidate, in Mahaworld, that's Clark. The point being that "best" is a way subjective thing. I agree that we need to let the primary elections show us the way. But along the way, let us not spread lies and rumors to tear down the Dems who are not "our" preferred candidate.

[FubarFly]

172. I'm sorry if I erred in my assumptions.

I'm not hear to tear down Clark. But I won't hide from uncomfortable truths either. For me, Clark's MIC involvements are a serious issue. If they are not for you, then godspeed.

For the record, I will not willingly recite lies about any Democratic candidate. If you would like to dispute any of the facts presented in this thread, please do so.

[maha]

178. All I'm really saying

... is that people should chill out until we hear other sides to this story. I'm betting there is less to it than meets the eye.

[FubarFly]

180. Fine, I'm sure many of us would like to hear a valid explanation. n/t

[Forkboy]

235. Hey thats a cool tactic

insult people then tell them to chill out.

[lostnfound]

156. I place a HIGH value on a people's right to "self-determination"

So did our 'founding fathers', theoretically. Bullying our way around Latin America is a major problem for people trying to live and breathe free down there. The conflict is between democracy/self-determination and the U.S. placement of a higher priority on protection of investments and right to exploitation. With 80%-90% poor in many Latin American countries, and the U.S. consistently propping up a wealthy elite in opposition to the people, this is not about purity; it's about life and death.

[maha]

167. Indeed.

The first message in this thread smacks of carefully spun propganda. I would need to see more information before jumping to the conclusions you have jumped to.

[SWPAdem]

220. Yes, indeed

It reeks of an orchestrated campaign with numerous posters reciting the same memes, over and over. Gee, who do we know in the political field that is famous for such activities?

[stickdog]

221. Yeah, that's me. The prototypical careful propaganda monger.

:eyes:

[Aidoneus]

158. it's not "purity" I'm after here

but rather, just plain decency..

[maha]

169. If you believe everything you are told

without asking questions, you'll end up with a demagogue.

I think I'll start a thread about Wesley Clark drowning puppies in his bathwater and see who bites.

[incapsulated]

173. maha...

That he defended the School of the Americas to congress is a fact.
That he spoke glowingly to the graduating class there is a fact.
That this "school" was a training camp for our puppets in Latin America who commited outrageous crimes against humanity is a fact.

It was so obvious, even the mainstream media questioned its activities.

He had better address this, and soon. I've forgiven a lot of politicans a lot of things. I'm a realist when it comes to politics. But I have my limits. Until we have a nominee, I am free to change my mind about who I will support.

[maha]

177. Fair enough.

I know someone I can ask about this.

[incapsulated]

179. I would really appreciate that!

Thanks.

:)

[maha]

181. It's done.

I'll post whatever response I get.

[incapsulated]

183. maha...

:yourock:

[stickdog]

227. He also received a handsome salary for selling US taxpayers

CAPPS II -- a piece of shit Big Brother invasion of personal privacy that supposedly addresses a nonexistent threat (US citizens hijacking domestic flights) while making it far easier for actual terrorist cells to hijack planes.

He was also one of the leaders of the NED with extensive experience in Latin America when the NED was backing an abortive coup against the legitimate, democratically elected President of Venezuela.

All of this is confirmed.

These are admitted facts, not Rove-planted Clark myths. In fact, Republicans typically love this type of shit.

Hmmmm ...

[Pastiche423]

160. This has nothing to do

w/"purity". clark has been and still is associated w/too many on the dark side to come anywhere close to "pure". His associates are the people we on the left have been fighting for decades.

All of us are products of our life experiences and how we act upon those experiences. clark's are 180 of how I and many, many other Demcorats have chosen to act on our life experiences.

His choice to work with and/or associate w/the Carlyle groupers, the Carlucci's, the PNACers, the repugs, the Stephens, the Axcioms, the Nixons, the Reagans, the Bushes, etc are not the choices most Democrats would make.


In short, he is not who he has claimed to be since he decided to run for president. He is not a friend to the Democratic Party.

[maha]

174. Well, then, I guess I must be your enemy, too.

First, career officers don't always have a lot of choice about some of their associations. They associate as they are ordered to associate. And anyone who has lead a long public life is going to have some associations in his background that don't look good. It is unavoidable.

One of the cleanest politicians we had in this country in the 20th century, John Glenn, got caught up in the Keating scandal, for example, which probably ruined his chances for running for President. A damn shame, I say.

Second, I am not so much a "Democrat" myself as a plain old liberal, and a fairly mainstream liberal at that. Party affiliation means less to me than how a person stands on issues, but then I am an old lady and remember when most Democrats in my state belonged to the Klu Klux Klan. Awhile back.

None of our "great" presidents has been pure. You can dig up stuff on Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and on and on that are both ideologically and morally fairly nasty. And I'm sure, whoever your candidate is, given some time I could dig up nasties on him, too. You're just picking and choosing the dirt you want to believe in.

I remember back when McGovern dumped Eagleton; a lot of anti-war Democrats turned on McGovern and wouldn't vote for him. So happens I was a student at the U of Missouri School of Journalism in those days, so I had access to a lot of unpublished reporting about our state politicians. Eagleton wasn't just a former mental patient; Eagleton was a five-alarm alcoholic (you still won't read that in print). Eagleton even at the time of the campaign didn't have all his oars rowing in the same direction. McGovern did the right thing by dumping him; but the purist of the day didn't see that.

Sorry, I'm ranting. Well, go back to stewing in your own purity, or whatever it is you do.

[Pastiche423]

186. He is no longer

in the military and has not been for years. He no longer has that excuse.

I don't have to pick dirt. By googling clark's name, the dirt, as you call it, simply pops up everywhere.

clark is a grown up civilian man now. He chose who and what he wanted to associate himself w/. Those associations are not the Democratic ideology I have followed and been a part of for thirty one registered years.

The School of Americas is LIBERAL? As the valley girls once so eloquently put it, gag me w/a spoon.

[stickdog]

231. School of the Americas, Axciom ("no fly"), the NED, Jackson Stephens

were all voluntary associations that Clark chose to pursue after he retired from military service.

[ozone_man]

189. I couldn't have said it better. (n/t)

[w4rma]

165. Oh, bull. Clark is *by far* not the only candidate who can take on *

IMHO, he's been running an amateur campaign, anyway.

He needs to come out and say something about the NED. Something like he's going to push for defunding or push to reform it or something. But, he had better come out with something and quick because this information will get spread around and there is nothing anyone can say in defense of Clark at this moment in time, IMHO.

The everybody's doing it defense will only piss people off.

[maha]

175. Are you talking to me?

I'll alert by buddies working for Clark about the NED thing and see what they say. I am skeptical there's as much to it as you think there is.

[w4rma]

185. Yes (I replied to your post). And thank you for passing it along. (n/t)

[OKNancy]

193. Did you go to their web site?

Looks like a lot of work is done with Amnesty International. Looks like a non-partisan group to me.

[stickdog]

229. Did you go to Bush's website?

Wow. It looks like Bush really is a compassionate uniter!

[Castilleja]

161. Thanks for posting all this

Stickdog. It is pretty interesting and illuminating with respect to Wesley Clark, especially when added with everything else that has been posted here in a similar vein.

[Dover]

163. The corporations aren't the only ones supersizing themselves.

I think what Clark represents is a political "merger" of the parties that will soon make them indistinguishable thereby creating a WalMart Government that will take care of all our needs in one-stop shopping while denying any real choice. And eventually they will merge once more into the corporate entities that they truly are. Our entire democratic system is being removed. Voting, Party/candidate choice, etc. It's so deeply corrupt and so far along already in this process that it really would take a grassroots uprising to change course at this point.

[stickdog]

233. Don't forget polling, exit polling, and the corporate media.

This is why, to me, the three most important political issues of the day are:

1) black box voting,

2) the independence of major media from overweening corporate influence, and

3) Dean's new system of grassroots, people powered, small donor driven "campaign finance reform."

IMHO, all of these issues are even more important than kicking Chimpy to the curb, although that one is right up there as well.

[w4rma]

164. I need to research this. I'm not happy with what I see.

IMHO, Gen. Clark needs to address the NED indirectly and soon. If he doesn't this will turn into a PR word of mouth nightmare in addition to this information, possibly, uncovering some very bad things about Clark's priorities. :(

Note, just a warning to Clark folks. You guys had better not fall back on the everybody's doing it defense.

[gully]

171. The Honorable Bob Graham

is listed too? I haven't read about NED but I do trust Bob Graham KWIM?

:shrug: I will read more when time permits.

[Eloriel]

197. I personally have NEVER quite trusted Bob Graham

And I'd never have called him honorable, either.

It's just a personal opinion, one fueled by his coziness with the Intel community. I don't personally think you can SERVE on one of those intel community committees without being too cozy with them, or have too many lies to keep. JMO.

Eloriel

[gully]

206. Honorable is the 'official' term as copied from the website..

;)

Not my choice of words. But I do like Bob Graham for the most part.

"The Honorable Bob Graham-United States Senate"

[LoneStarLiberal]

176. In Defense of the NED

Interesting stuff. For those who are rigidly opposed to Wes Clark and any institution that allows Republicans on their Board of Directors or to even come in the front door, I've included the alternative to my rhetoric in ().

I do think it does the NED a disservice though to only discuss some of their errors in judgement in their grant awards (or, if you believe they are all evil, "...to only discuss their most evil awards...") without giving them credit for the many fine, neoliberal and liberal programs that their grants have supported over the years including programs in support of civic culture in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, such as:

*economic, social, and political enfranchisement of women;
*financial support through direct grants of domestic elections monitoring and verification organizations.

They are not PNAC or even PNAC-lite. They are a well-intentioned organization (evil empire) that has made mistakes (cynical choices) and should be judged by the balance of their actions and awards (should be judged only by the worst choices and the fact that there are Republicans and ex-military people on their Board of Directors).

I'm not going to lurk here and tell you the NED is all peaches and cream and this stuff is all tinfoil hat rhetoric, because it's not. Yes, the NED has made mistakes (purposeful decisions). Certainly some of their grants were politically awarded (awarded on purpose) to nefarious groups; should that slander the many grants that they have made that have done demonstrably positive things around the world? I don't believe it should.

Additionally, I don't see anything here that points to how this is "Clark's NED" (a point made by another poster) or that every single grant and consulting decision the NED has made got the personal vetting of Wes Clark (or that Wes Clark decided to help his Republican friends in the White House by knocking off Venezuela's little empersario). The conjecture that Clark's involvement in the NED is what drives all of its poor (nefarious) decisions requires a leap of faith that can only come from those who have already made up their minds to not support Clark and thus scandalize ever organization that he is associated with, including the NED.

[incapsulated]

182. I agree

NED is a nonissue to me. There a very good and very bad people associated with it. It has funded activities I approve of and those I most definately don't. It is also pretty big and who knows what any particular member had to do with a specific activity. It's too broad a brush.

The School of the Americas association is my problem and something I need an answer on.

[LoneStarLiberal]

187. SOA Info

Other people have posted pieces from this site, but I find this one to be the best to get information specifics from regarding SOA "graduates":

<http://www.soaw.org/new/article.php?id=205>

Here is what you will not find on this site: Discussion of the even more sordid past of the SOA, reforms made in SOA curriculum, SOA "success" stories, or how speaking at a graduation ceremony does not equal teaching infantry soldiers how to bayonet civilians.

SOA Watch actually leaves out some of the most aggregious human rights violations committed by the first and second generation of SOA graduates in the services of their respective countries' militaries. Since the "bad days" of the "good old" SOA, you can see how institutional change has pushed it away from its roots with the "Ray Ban and salad bar" crowd to something more reflective of tolerance for human rights, democratic institutions, and civic culture. The one recommendation I've made to the SOAW folks is to try and include graduation dates on this page; I think we will see a significant difference in the occurences of egregious violence committed by SOA graduates across time (higher at the beginning and lower as time goes by).

Speaking at a graduation ceremony does not equal condoning every future action of a graduate present.

Yes, the SOA should have a very critical eye trained on it because of the history of SOME of its graduates. Again, not to sound like a broken record but there are some good things that SOA graduates have done to go along with the malicious and violent actions of some of their graduates. To simply demonize the entire institution because some of their graduates have done very bad things is to ignore the history of our own party. Which party was long a bastion of the Ku Klux Klan and segregation? It was our party. The Democratic Party was the party of the segregationist, hateful, Jim Crow South. We evolved from than past while still bearing the Democratic mantle.

I think it is possible for other organizations with histories of intolerance and violence to change as well.

[incapsulated]

191. Clark on the SOA at Congress...

(Emphasis Mine)

Mr. SNYDER.: Second quick question is there has been some criticism of the IMET program, the International Military Education and Training program, that somehow that program has been used to get around some of the prohibitions in providing military training to some countries. I noticed in your written statement you make some very strong statements in support of the program. Do you have any comments about that program and about some of the criticisms that you have heard?

General CLARK: I will tell you that the IMET program is probably the most cost-effective means we have of engaging these countries. We need to bring their military leaders here at multiple levels. They need to see not only how America is operating and what American public attitudes are, they need to see how the Armed Forces in the United States think and train, the fact that we are nonpolitical, the fact that we are dedicated, the fact that we are a noncorrupt Armed Forces, the fact that we subsist on the public funding, so to speak, and don't try to line our pockets outside of office.

All of these need to be seen up close and understood to be believed, and we are teaching not only the technical and tactical aspects of military training but we teach democracy and human rights and many other programs through the IMET program. I can tell you that all of our instruction in U.S. service schools and institutions has been very, very carefully screened, especially the studies in the School of the Americas with which I am very familiar with my previous assignment. There is nothing going on in these institutions that you and the United States Congress wouldn't be extraordinarily proud of when you see the enormous leverage the United States gets in terms of bringing school attendees around to understanding American society and the way the American Armed Forces work. We make no apologies. We consider that we are an outstanding example and IMET is a way to show it.

No Apologies??

[LoneStarLiberal]

194. Interesting Testimony

I will definitely be interested in seeing what Clark has to say about this particular topic.

On first blush I would say that being proud of what would be taught and what instruction was given in the late 1990s at SOA versus the same things in the late 1970s or early 1980s would be two very different beasts. Many of the SOA's most well-known murderers and human rights violators were products of the SOA during

My contention is that SOA today (in the last six to seven years) is quite opposite from SOA of previous decades when it was undeniably a training ground for the Ray Ban Aviator-wearing military leaders of Central and South America.

The dates during Wes Clark's time with U.S. Southern Command and his speech at the SOA graduation quoted elsewhere in this thread (1996) would seem to indicate to me that his involvement with the SOA came after most of the heinous violators of human rights and murderers were there. I would again make the case that institutions, no matter how hidebound, can change, taking our own Democratic Party as an example.

I will eagerly await some concrete commentary from Wes Clark on it.

[incapsulated]

195. I know the SOA supposedly reformed

However, the response (and defense) Clark gave was at a time when quesitons where being raised and there where calls for an investigation. If he had admitted that there had been problems, but that the SOA had, or was in the process, of changing, I would be ok with it. It was the blanket denial of anything questionable about the school at all that bothers me. I'm eagerly awaiting what he has to say now, as well. Because the "bad acts" of the SOA contradict everything he is now saying about how foreign relations should work in this country.

[andym]

196. IMET program screens for human rights abusers

You may be right that IMET in the last 7 or so years is different
than that operating in the 70s and 80's

As of at least 1997, IMET program sought to reduce problem of human
rights abuses by screening for human rights abusers:

From Senator Leahy:
...Unlike the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program which screens foreign participants for any involvement in human rights violations , the Special Forces program, which conducted training exercises in 102 countries in fiscal year 1997, apparently does not.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/199806/980604.html

In the late 90's some countries (eg Indonesia) were essentially prohibited from joining the program due to doubts about human rights.

[stickdog]

234. The SS helped a lot of lower class Germans with their self-esteem.

The KKK helped Southerners to stand on their own after Reconstruction.

al Qaeda and Hamas do a lot of grassroots community work.

[Say_What]

190. NED and SOA are bed fellows

<clips>

....Other troubling ties

Congress should certainly investigate the U.S. Army School of the Americas (now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Operations) in Fort Benning, Ga. that trained two of the key coup leaders, Army Commander in Chief Efrain Vasquez and General Ramirez Poveda. The "school" is infamous for producing 11 dictators in Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and Guatemala.

According to STRATFOR, a private intelligence provider, the CIA had close ties with the most reactionary wing of the operation, including the extreme right-wing Catholic organization, Opus Dei, and General Ruben Rohas (ret.). It was this group that put Carmona into power, who then dissolved the Legislature, dismissed the Supreme Court, the attorney general and the National Election Commission, fired provincial governors and suspended the constitution.

Following meetings between the Bush administration and coup leaders, an anonymous e-mail was sent to the Financial Times detailing what would eventually became the coup's blueprint: a strike at Petroleos de Venezuela, leading to gas shortages, which would create chaos. The chaos would spark demonstrations that would force Chavez to resign under military pressure.

According to STRATFOR, the CIA, through the Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, N.C., has worked on organizing oil union leaders and military commanders since the summer of 2001. The congressionally funded National Endowment for Democracy also funneled almost $900,000 to Chavez foes.

http://www.examiner.com/sfx/templates/printer.jsp?story=OPhallinan050302w

[Zorra]

313. More on SOA: Dems 1996, and....

The School of the Americas does not appear to be an institute of higher learning. How many atrocities that we don't know about have been committed by graduates of this "school"?

Close School of Americas; Release jailed protestors
Rep. Joe Kennedy press advisory. 27 September, 1996

WASHINGTON-- U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass), citing new documents linking the U.S. Army School of the Americas to training in murder and torture, today renewed calls on the Clinton Administration to shut down the facility.

According to excerpts released by the Pentagon, School of the Americas students were advised to handle intelligence sources by imprisoning them or jailing their parents. The manuals instructed students in the use of "motivation by fear," paying bounties for enemy dead, executing opponents, subverting the press and using torture, blackmail and even injections of truth serum to obtain information.

"That is why I am here today to continue my efforts to support closing the School of the Americas. We do disservice to our nation and all nations when we use our military know how to train soldiers from other countries to intimidate, torture, and kill. Our country and our military deserve better than to be known as teachers in a 'School of Assassins.'"

"IT'S TIME," CONCLUDED CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY, "TO CLOSE DOWN THE SCHOOL OF THE AMERICAS."

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/40/025.html

Clark:

I can tell you that all of our instruction in U.S. service schools and institutions has been very, very carefully screened, especially the studies in the School of the Americas with which I am very familiar with my previous assignment. There is nothing going on in these institutions that you and the United States Congress wouldn't be extraordinarily proud of when you see the enormous leverage the United States gets in terms of bringing school attendees around to understanding American society and the way the American Armed Forces work. We make no apologies. We consider that we are an outstanding example and IMET is a way to show it.

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has076000.000/has076000_0f.htm

I'm not sure what to think about this. What was Clark's "previous assignment"?

Clark was Commander-in-Chief, United States Southern Command, Panama, from June 1996 to July 1997, where he commanded all U.S. forces and was responsible for the direction of most U.S. military activities and interests in Latin America and the Caribbean.

http://www.torgo.us/wesley/bio.htm

This is from the Center for International Human Rights

Deja vu: Colombia today is El Salvador, 1982, plus drugs.

To begin, the war. Organized in over 100 groups, Colombia's 15,000 guerrillas, according to our State Department, exercise "a degree of permanent influence in more than half of the country's municipalities." When local elections were held this week, they killed over 50 candidates, kidnapped 200, forced nearly 2000 to drop out, and scared away voters in much of the countryside. In one town the mayor was elected by a single vote -- not a one-vote margin, but a single vote, period.

Human rights violations have reached staggering proportions: In 1996 Colombia suffered some 3,600 political assassinations. Of those for which responsibility can be identified, a third were committed by the guerrillas. But about two thirds were committed either by right-wing paramilitary groups closely aligned with the military, or directly by the military. There were also dozens of disappearances.

Few of the guilty are ever punished. Valiant civilian human rights prosecutors can't catch guerrillas. When they indicted a former army general last year for orchestrating paramilitary murders, his case was quickly transferred to military courts, where he will most likely get a medal.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/ihr/display_details.cfm?ID=120&document_type=commentary

This is all very distressing. An explanation is in order.

[andym]

184. The NED is a decentralized organization by design

The NED is a decentralized organization by design in
order to allow Republicans, Democrats, Labor, and
the chamber of commerce to engage in their pet projects.

Even the conservative Cato Institute called it a "Loose Cannon" in 1993.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027.html

It's not likely that Wes Clark vetted any project
being sponsored by its Republican directors.
Thw question is what were his projects there.

[LoneStarLiberal]

188. Good Point

I too would be interested to see some specifics.

Good point about the decentralized nature of the NED as well.

[stickdog]

237. The NED is also a far from transparent organization by design.

So best of luck when it comes getting actual official documentation of the true story of what General Clark was doing there.

It's kind of interesting that such a "benign" organization is so covert, isn't it?

[andym]

340. re: NED is also a far from transparent organization by design."

Yes, the NED is also far from a transparent organization by design.
Quite right, it has to be opaque even to it's own directors and members, to allow these disparate groups (Dems, Reps, Labor, Chamber of Commerce) to pursue their pet projects unimpeded by groups that don't agree. Probably no member or director is even allowed to know about the full range of projects, because members of the other groups running the place would object.

So it is not likely that Republicans would allow Clark, who was appointed during Clinton's term at the same time as Holbrook, to know what they are doing. Similarly, Carlucci probably only gets to participate in the Republican sponsored projects. Venezuela was almost certainly a Republican project.

That said, you're correct in assuming it would be difficult to find out what Clark's projects really were. I speculate that at least some involved Serbia given his expertise (and Clinton's interest) at the time of appointement. But who knows what he really did?

As for your comment that the NED is a benign organization,
you are partly correct. The NED is both malignant and benign. Many of the publically described projects on their website are benign. Just the same, they do have a malignant history with Venezuela being
just the latest in a series of troubling, aggressive instances of interference in other countries' politics. The NED is an organization that clearly suffers from multiple personality disorder.

[robbedvoter]

198. Yet another conspiracy confusion. Now the facts:

The National Endowment for Democracy is *not* a front for PNAC or the
neocons. It's a private non-profit (but partially government-funded)
organization which provides assistance and grants to democracy
promotion efforts overseas.

It also funds two other organizations, which are incorporated
separately, each with links to a major political party: the National
Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute
(IRI). NED's board is bipartisan, and includes a number of liberal-
leaning Democrats, labor union leaders, etc, along with some
conservatives.

http://www.ned.org/about/faq.html

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies is probably what
they're confusing it with:

http://www.defenddemocracy.org/

It *is* a neocon organization, with a very strong overlap with PNAC.
I don't know where their funding comes from, but their board includes
most of the neocon "usual suspects" who are currently outside
government - Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Frank
Gaffney, etc.

Anyway, the fact that Wes Clark serves on the board of the NED is
nothing to hold against him. Quite the contrary...

[Dr Fate]

199. But few of the "news junkies" here will read your post...

...it's amazing how "openminded" some of the Drudge-posting DUers are...

[FubarFly]

201. I've read the post.

Citing proof of the NED as a valid organization from it's own website is not credible. The decentralized argument is working much better. If you read the whole thread, there is no doubt that the NED has been used as a cover for some pretty shady operations. What is in doubt is if Clark had an involvement in any of those ops. The fact that the NED can claim some legitimate goals only complicates the issue.

[rucky]

205. Thank You! That makes A TON more sense...

Facts rule!

Remember...Neocons are CONTROL FREAKS. They're also idiots. Stubborn idiots, but they obviously don't spread that wide - nor with much stealth. They sign their names to everything they do, and they aren't ashamed to air their views in public.

that's what makes the PNAC conspiracy so strange. almost like "the more ridiculous the lie, the easier it is to believe."

And you suckas are falling for some WHOPPERS.



:yourock:

[Starpass]

212. robbed--many on this board would find a nice home with the

repukes who did such wonderful numbers on McCain, one of their own. It's the same slime operation and I, therefore, associate it with the guy they are working for. I have one Bush in the WH; I don't need another who works in the same way. Every one of these posts makes me even more CERTAIN I do not want to see Dean as our nominee, ever. Same character traits as Bush (think Gep was right).

[stickdog]

239. Do you know the meaning of the term "trojan horse"?

Just wondering.

[Say_What]

249. You believe the BS from their website?? LOL!! Man, THAT'S naive.

and that *democracy* NED tries to promote.. like Venezuela or in Cuba. NED funded the terrorist organization CANF for years. Here's some verifiable FACTS about how that was done. Hardly conspiracy confusion.

Inciting the overthrow of foreign governments, yeah, that *real* democratic </sarcasm>

<clips>

...That outspokenness is what got him in trouble, at least with Mas Canosa. in 1992 Smith was interviewed by filmmakers from the University of West Florida for a documentary titled "Campaign for Cuba," which aired on PBS that year. Smith's statements on that program formed the basis of CANF's lawsuit against him. In a 20-second sound bite, he summarized an article by John Spicer Nichols that appeared in The Nation in 1988. The article, titled "Cuba: The Congress; The Power of the Anti-Fidel Lobby," reported that the National Endowment for Democracy, a quasi-governmental institute that funnels U.S. tax dollars to projects intended to support democracy abroad, signed contracts with CANF from 1983-1988 awarding the foundation grants totalling $390,000 for the purpose of supporting a European organization also seeking to marshal opposition to the Castro government.

During that same period, the po-litical action committee associated- through interlocking directorships with CANF gave a nearly identical sum of contributions to political candidates. Among the candidates to receive a portion of this PAC money was then Congressman Dante Fascell, who introduced the legislation creating NED and later became a member of the NED board. As a board member, Fascell, whose congressional district in South Florida encompassed the headquarters for CANF and the homes of many of its leaders, voted for grants to CANF on at least three occasions.

Nichols, a Penn State communications professor and a long-time professional colleague of Smith, argued in the article that when CANF received a windfall of NED grants to carry out activities it would have otherwise supported with internal funds, its associated PAC (which is funded by essentially the same pool of donors) has a greater percentage of existing funds to contribute to political campaigns. However, as long as CANF and its PAC were separate legal entities and none of the actual NED money went directly to the PAC, federal law was technically not broken, but the spirit of the law was nonetheless compromised.

Nichols, Penn State, The Nation and PBS were not sued. CANF targeted only its perennial critic Wayne Smith. CANF asserted during the 1996 trial that Smith had falsely alleged in his broadcast remark that the foundation transferred the same money received from NED to its PAC, which would be a violation of law and therefore defamatory. Here's exactly what Smith said: "It is interesting that the National Endowment for Democracy has contributed to the Cuban American National Foundation and it, in turn, through its own organization, through its PAC, has contributed to the campaign funds of many congressmen, including some who were involved with the National Endowment for Democracy from whence they got the money in the first place such as Dante Fascell."

http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/98-3NRfall98/Nichols_SLAPP.html

---

... --from the International Rescue Committee Board's May 22, 1991
Meeting Minutes

"...The National Endowment for Democracy was set up to `support
democratic institutions throughout the world through private,
nongovernmental efforts.'...

"Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED was
quite candid when he said in 1991: `A lot of what we do today was done
covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.' In effect, the CIA has been
laundering money through NED.

"...NED successfully manipulated elections in Nicaragua in 1990 and
Mongolia in 1996 and helped to overthrow democratically elected
governments in Bulgaria in 1990 and Albania in 1991 and 1992. In Haiti
in the late 1990s, NED was busy working on behalf of right-wing groups
who were united in their opposition to former president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide and his progressive ideology...

"...Cuban dissident groups and media are heavily supported...Between
1990 and 1997, the Endowment donated a quarter-million dollars of
taxpayers' money to the Cuban-American National Fund, the ultra-fanatic
anti-Castro Miami group...

http://www.questionsquestions.net/feldman/nation_ned_1_txt.html

[Starpass]

203. THAT DOES IT---I'm going to change who I vote for

I now 100% intend to drop Clark and vote for George W. Bush. I am so afraid of all these unholy, fucking, awful, evil, Satanic slime balls we have running for the Dems that George now does look like God. Now I know why the right wing loves him and hates us. We certainly have people who not only don't deserve to be in office but they should be taken out somewhere, put against a wall and shot to death. VOTE BUSH -04--HE'S GREAT, HONEST, WONDERFUL AND A TRUE AMERICAN NOT LIKE THESE GODDAMN DEMOCRATIC FILTH SCUM BASTARDS. GO BUSH '04........you people make me sick.

[zeemike]

207. What does that mean?

Are you coming out of the closet?

[Starpass]

211. zee--no sweetie but I'd like to know what's up with a lot of the

"good democrats" around here. I think there is more going on with these daily bombardments. And I'll ask A ONE A MORE A TIME---why the hell won't anyone here address DEANS LOCKED PAPERS???????? If people used one tenth of their time trying to find out what Howard's been up to for years in Vermont than trying to go after Clark or Kerry, etc. maybe we would have a real "revelation" to talk about. I think these Dean operatives smell a lot like the fucking slime of the Bush administration when they went after one of their own, McCain. Same vermin, different party. And Dean yacked about how Wes was his buddy. Shall we start a rumor that Dean is, thus, a secret Republican??? Or shall we start a rumor that Dean is just an old fashioned snake?

[zeemike]

216. What would we base that rumor on?

Deans past voting for repugs? I know of no such thing.
What locked papers? Why not give me a link. I’ll look at it, just as I have looked at all negative comments about Dean. I am not afraid of learning the truth about any of them.

[stickdog]

219. Red Herring.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html

This thread isn't about rumors.

Meanwhile, you can't even come up with a believable rumor concerning what horrible evil supposedly lurks deeps in "Dean's papers."

Dean knew he was running for President, and he knew that if he ever became a legitimate threat in his next campaign, the establishment would pull out all the stops to destroy his candidacy.

He also knew that he'd evolved (which would be spun as flip flopping), compromised (which would be spun as selling out) and spoken rashly and bluntly (which would feed the "Dean's liable to say anything" and "Dean's too angry" memes). He probably wrote more than a few memos and emails that he now wishes he could destroy or take back.

But Dean sure wasn't selling off our civil rights for his own monetary gains, and he sure wasn't dabbling in destabilizing legitimately elected democracies.

[Name removed]

226. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

236. Stickdog has been far more polite on this thread

than any Clark supporter so far.Who needs the doctor?

[SWPAdem]

251. Yeah, like you have an unbiased opinion....NOT

n/t

[Forkboy]

258. Like you have one?

Funny,I comment about the insulting Clark supporters and get insulted by a Clark supporter. :freak:

[SWPAdem]

261. I am just devastated.

Are you Stickdog's mommy, or something?

[Forkboy]

270. I'm not his mommy

but yours should step in on your behalf soon if insult after insult is all you can manage.

[SWPAdem]

272. If you are insulted, then I suggest you quit bothering me.

n/a

[Forkboy]

273. If I am bothering you

why do you keep responding?

How about if you just stop being insulting? Or is that too much to ask?

[SWPAdem]

293. You first.

n/t

[stickdog]

240. Personal Attack

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/personal-attack.html

[SWPAdem]

253. Thin skin?

Keep replying...I want you to have to look at my sig line a million times.

[Forkboy]

259. Too bad the maturity you showed the other day

has evaporated in to childish things like "I want you to have to look at my sig line a million times."

When is recess over?

[SWPAdem]

269. Recess has been over since early this morning

When the Clark is not a real Dem, Clark eats kittens, Clark supporters are too stupid to make their own decisions, PNAC plant, puppet of the MIC, Trojan Horse, Carlyle Group minion, military dictatorship, bla bla bla started. I do not have an ounce of civility left towards this orchestrated, bogus bullshit. You are late to the game and apparently you want to join in. When I see some maturity, instead of poor sportsmanship, coming out of this camp, I will reciprocate in kind. Till then, I'm not taking any prisoners.

[Forkboy]

275. You hate the behaviour so much

you're willing to ape it.

okee doke :crazy:

[SWPAdem]

298. I didn't say I hate it

The way to fight bullies is to get right back up there in their faces. There are some people that are really looking for discussion and debate and I will deal with them with the respect they deserve. There are others that are driven by ideological agendas that are serving no other purpose than to disseminate unproven propaganda. Those individuals deserve the same sort of treatment they dish out. I am not in the mood to dick around with you. My gripe was not with you, but you inserted yourself into the mix and threw the first punch. Quit'cher whining.

[Forkboy]

300. If you're not in the mood to "dick around with me"

then why are you? :crazy: :freak:

Quit'cher whining indeed :eyes:

[SWPAdem]

310. Cause you just keep begging for it

like a gnat on a hot summer day.

[Forkboy]

312. I'm flattered that I bother you so much

that you can't stop trying to swat me.

And thanks for keeping Stickdog's original post kicked time after time :hi:

[janekat]

268. LOL! too funny!

[SWPAdem]

304. Perfect line to use on the "wrapped too tightly" set

if I say so myself.

[dd123]

316. I agree. You guys are cracking me up.

*

[Bertrand]

230. So your argument is that

Dean should lock his papers because it could hurt him politically? Are you really saying that Deans past could come back to haunt him so he should keep it quite yet what your believe to be Clarks is valid?

[stickdog]

290. strawman

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

[Bertrand]

328. No

because i was asking a question and not inferring your opinion, hence the question marks. This is elementary stuff.

[SWPAdem]

225. Ain't it grand

We have Democrats that question Clark's ideology while they engage in Rovian tactics and uncategorically state that they will not vote for Clark if he is the Dem nominee. What kind of frickin Democrat is that? :wtf:

[stickdog]

241. An informed Democrat.

The real question is what kind of "Democrat" is General Clark?

[SWPAdem]

255. The kind that can beat the shit out of Smirk

Implying that I am not an "informed" democrat is a personal attack in my book.

[Forkboy]

260. Thin skin?

[SWPAdem]

263. Response to Post 241, authored by Stickdog

Unless you and he/it are joined at the hip, I am speaking to him.

[Forkboy]

271. tough crap

it's a PUBLIC message board and I'll decide where and when I want to respond.

Deal with it.

[SWPAdem]

303. I am. Your the one whining about how mean I am

Honey, I've been going face-to-face with the Clinton hating, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Freeptards that inhabit my neck of the woods for the last 6 years. Y'all don't scare me.

As I said, respond all you want, cause I'll keep on answering, giving ya a chance to gaze at our next President.

[Forkboy]

306. Wow...6 whole years!

Honey,that aint shit.

[SWPAdem]

311. I didn't say that was my only experience with bullies

just the freep variety.

[stickdog]

274. Will the logical fallacies never cease?

An argument doesn't imply its negation.

Nor its converse. (Just trying to head off your next post before the fact.)

[Code_Name_D]

277. One of these days, we will actualy see them Defend Clark.

With supporters like these, who needs smear artists?

[Forkboy]

279. I've seen it happen

once or twice...not very often though.

[SWPAdem]

307. No need to defend against baseless allegations

just smackdown the source.

[Forkboy]

309. Clark thanks you

for the sound defense tactics :eyes:

[SWPAdem]

314. Read my lips...

There is no reason to defend against assumptions, fantasy and wet dreams of Clark bashers. Show me some facts, like actual knowledge or participation in some nefarious activities. Otherwise, these allegations are bullshit. Unless you are some kind of a Patriot Act fan, people are still innocent until proven guilty in this country. Plus, you gotta consider the source. Personally, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that the original post is pure astroturf.

[Forkboy]

315. A kick for Clark

[Code_Name_D]

330. Show you some facts?

Just what do you think we have been doing for the past two weeks. You realy should learn how to read for comprehention.

[stickdog]

215. False dichotomy (NT)

[Sterling]

208. Clark is a joke.

Too bad I am not laughing. Now Clarkbars are forced to either defend PNAC and the Carlyle Group or actually vote for a real Democrat. Probably a very tough choice for a lot of them.

[bicentennial_baby]

209. Well you better tell these people

Arkansas, Texas Democratic Party Chairs Endorse Wesley Clark

Little Rock, AR - Arkansas Democratic Chair Ron Oliver and Vice Chair Karla Bradley and Texas Democratic Chair Molly Beth Malcolm announced their endorsement of General Wesley Clark today.

"General Wesley Clark has the knowledge and experience to make a great President," said Arkansas Democratic Chair Ron Oliver. "He will bring this country new direction. Clark has National Security experience and knows that America's security depends on a strong economy. Once again, the people of Arkansas are proud to offer a candidate to replace a President that has damaged our national economy."

"As the stepmother of a son serving in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq, his commitment to a New American Patriotism has deep meaning for me," said Texas Democratic Chair Molly Beth Malcolm. "In a time of war and uncertainty, America needs a leader who truly understands the consequences of sending our sons and daughters overseas to fight in a hostile land. We need a leader that understands that we must win the peace as well as the war. We need a leader who respects our allies and is unafraid to work with world leaders. We'll get that kind of leader with Wes Clark."

http://www.clark04.com/press/release/009/

[stickdog]

217. Appeal to Authority/Appeal to Popularity

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-popularity.html

[Bertrand]

222. No

because he wasnt presenting the endorsements as an argument against the poster he was responding to.

[stickdog]

242. Damn! You just might be right.

red herring

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html

[Bertrand]

329. You dont know how to desconstruct arguments

instead of putting up links, which is a copout to thinking, tell me specifically how my post was a red herring.

[zeemike]

224. That was interesting

Thanks

[janekat]

250. Bob Graham, Evan Bayh on that list - thanks for "smearing" them

Bob Graham has a LOT of integrity - known him for years and I don't appreciate you smearing him. You obviously don't know what the word "integrity" means...

[FubarFly]

254. What did Bob Graham do for the NED?

What did Evan Bayr do for the NED?

What did Wesley Clark do for the NED?

Do you have any answers? Or more insults?

[stickdog]

280. oops (nt)

[FubarFly]

291. Psst...I wasn't responding to you. n/t.

[stickdog]

301. Please ignore. (nt)

[FubarFly]

305. np

np

on edit: :toast: :-)

[stickdog]

308. Yes, my mistake. Sorry. (nt)

[SWPAdem]

256. Welcome back to the Internecine wars...Dem style

:hi:

[stickdog]

276. What projects have they headed for the NED?

Just curious.

And please explain exactly where, when or how I "smeared" either of those fine upstanding DINOs.

[FubarFly]

285. Looks like Graham supported the NED's work in Cuba.

Washington - The Cuban Solidarity Act, introduced today by Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn) and Jesse Helms (R-NC) would get the United States actively involved in the fight for freedom in Cuba. (Click here for bill summary or full bill text)

"With the enactment of this legislation, U.S. policy will no longer be simply to isolate the Castro regime, but to support those working to bring about change inside Cuba," Graham said. "These brave men and women fighting for democracy deserve the full backing of the democracy next door."

The legislation authorizes $100 million over four years in U.S. assistance to the Cuban people. It also mandates a proactive U.S. policy to support the internal opposition in Cuba. Under the bill, the president would have the authority to increase all forms of U.S. support for pro-democracy and human rights activists as well as nascent independent groups in Cuba, including those supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. This solidarity policy is modeled on U.S. support for the Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s.

Humanitarian aid will undermine the Castro regime's ability to stifle dissent through the denial of work and basic necessities and bolster support for the pro-democracy organizations offering the aid.

http://www.senate.gov/~graham/pr051601.html

[DoveTurnedHawk]

252. I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT WAIT

Until Clark wins the nomination and the Presidency, and all of the shrill, paranoid, idiotic "Democrats" who opposed him for stupid "reasons" like these are marginalized and made completely impotent by way of their weak attempt to hold the real Democratic party hostage.

Fuck the conspiracy theorists!

DTH

[stickdog]

262. The Real Democratic Party

privacy hating
liberal baiting
Reagan fellating
big tent amputating
NED advocating
SOA celebrating
BBV facilitating
Carlyle affiliating
populism denigrating
progressive alienating
obtusely triangulating
democracy obviating
fallaciously debating
DU infiltrating
Repuke approximating
neocons-in-waiting

[DoveTurnedHawk]

265. Maybe In Your Mind

Even though that is a fundamentally paranoid concept.

The real Democratic party supports:

choice
affirmative action
the environment
rolling back the tax cuts
civil liberties
internationalism
deficit reduction

I love to see the extremists marginalized, though!

DTH

[Say_What]

284. Dems and Repukes: All nicely bought and paid for by the corps

one party two names. The entire planet knows it and jokes about it except of course brainwashed 'muriKans with BLINKERS ON.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

286. Shouldn't You Be Cheerleading Cuba's Bioweapons Program?

After all, we Americans are so unenlightened!

DTH

[Say_What]

295. Testy, testy....

poor baby....

:nopity: :nopity: :nopity:

[catforclark2004]

264. and plus when Clark speaks, the world listens..........see Intl News!

Finally, we have a voice of reason that is being heard all over the world representing the US, a voice and can do away with Bush, PNAC & etal....and what do we Democrats do?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/04/wclark04.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/04/ixportaltop.html

not question patriotism, never would a Dem do that....that's a sin!

but questions party affiliations? sure, why not?

It's the same game, no difference.

THe Democratic tent has gotten very small indeed.

Will make any Republican or Independent think twice about ever crossing party lines.

That is the message of the Great Democratic Party, brought to you by the great do-gooders of the "correct" party who have done everything just so......

The leaders that have all of the answers; Kerry, Dean and Lieberman, letting all know that unless you were born a Democrat, stay away...Because they've got it all under control.

The party of inclusion shows it's hypocracy, once again.

too bad...cause we could win this one.

But nooooooooooo, let's just be, as it's been said many times, a party that really doesn't stand for much of anything.

It's unfortunate that even with the current terrible, terrible , terrible, terrible president...

when it comes to party pride, we'll just cut off our noses to spite our faces.

Smells like the Greens in 2000 to me.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

266. But You Forget, the World Hates Clark for His Affiliation to a Group

That wants to spread democracy.

Shame, shame Clark!

DTH

[dd123]

317. DTH, you're ok with the NED efforts to overthrow

Chavez in Venezuela.

Say it ain't so!

[DoveTurnedHawk]

319. And What Evidence Would Show That?

All we have are one person's claims that NED fulfilled its purpose by granting a whopping $84,000 to a group promoting democratic ideals in Venezuela. Anything more than that is just a weak guilt-by-association smear. That's also assuming (and it's a big assumption) that NED knew everything about this group, and supported it.

I would also note that NED takes fire from both the left and the right, the left for allegedly underminind socialist and communist regimes (something which, even if true -- which I do not concede -- will not be a problem for 95% of this country), and the right for allegedly furthering social democratic principles rather than unfettered capitalism.

Finally, the CIA certainly doesn't need NED to do its dirty work.

DTH

[suegeo]

267. Viva Vin Weber

I have not read even 2 percent of this post

And I MUST admit, that if they put a ham sandwich up against Bush, I would vote for the ham sandwich.

However I felt I should post the story that I know of NED and Vin Weber right away for what it is worth. If I get a chance this week end I will read all of this post and perhaps come back and comment again

Vin Weber is very very icky. I gotta to take a shower now, upon hearing his name.

I am not sure about Wes Clark yet. (Not negative, not positive. I simply dont know that much about him yet)

Anyway, this article about Weber and NED is worth a read

http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1119/article10388.asp

In the days following last month's abrupt and short-lived ouster of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, there were widespread accusations that the U.S. had provided assistance to a cabal of business, military, and labor leaders behind the coup. That such claims would be leveled is not surprising. The U.S. has a long history of meddling in Latin American politics. And the Bush administration has done little to disguise its hostility to Chavez, who has been denounced for his leftist rhetoric, his ties to pariah states such as Libya and Iraq, and, perhaps most significant, his efforts to overhaul the state-run petroleum industry.

But despite a rash of reports linking CIA and State Department officials to the coup, one question of particular interest to Minnesotans has remained both unasked and unanswered: What role was played by former Second District Congressman Vin Weber?

Weber, a power player in GOP political circles who retired from Congress in 1993, has served as chairman of the board for the obscure but influential National Endowment for Democracy since January 2001. The NED, a private nonprofit agency, was founded in the early Eighties with the express goal of fostering democratic ideals abroad. Although it is funded almost exclusively with taxpayer dollars (to the tune of $33 million annually), the NED is supposed to operate independently of any government agency. Theoretically, this allows the NED to carry out its mission in countries where official U.S. involvement is unwelcome, such as Manuel Noriega's Panama.

[janekat]

278. Most of the money goes to the AFL CIO...

"the four main recipients: the AFL CIO receives approximately 40 percent of available funding, while each of the other groups receives around 10 percent. That imbalance has prompted speculation that NED is in the hands of the neo-Trotskyite Social Democrats/USA, whose membership includes both NED president Carl Gershman and a number of AFL-CIO officials involved with the endowment."

[DoveTurnedHawk]

281. But the AFL-CIO Is EEEEEEEVIL!

I mean, they're obviously a bunch of accommodationist anti-revolutionaries!

DTH

[Say_What]

292. AFL-CIO, NED, and the failed Venezuela coup

<clips>

...Throughout the Cold War the AFL-CIO’s international work was funded by the U.S. government and served to further the government’s goals. The AFL supported “good unions” or tried to undermine “bad unions” based on their enthusiasm for U. S. corporations. It labeled as “not free” or “communist” those unions that challenged U.S. domination of their countries.

When John Sweeney was elected in 1995, the federation seemed to be turning over a new leaf.

But on February 12 the AFL-CIO sponsored, with the National Endowment for Democracy, a closed forum featuring representatives of the CTV. The NED is an organization created by the Reagan administration to “promote democracy” abroad; the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center receives much of its funding from NED.

The forum was part of a tour funded by NED, and included meetings with several AFL-CIO leaders. According to one union member who participated in the meetings, the CTV representatives noted that they were here to discuss the chances for a coup in Venezuela.

http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2002/05/b.html

[DoveTurnedHawk]

294. OMG. You Actually ARE Claiming the AFL-CIO Is Evil!

Truth is stranger than fiction! I'll be sure to forward your concerns along to some of the Democratic Party's most loyal constituents. Obviously, you are much more important than them. Shame on the AFL-CIO, we should obviously model our country after Cuba!

:crazy:

DTH

[Name removed]

296. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stickdog]

282. Don't you mean the AFL-CIA?

More than 5 billion covertly served!

[DoveTurnedHawk]

283. Stickdog! I Can't Believe You're So Anti-Labor!

For shame!

DTH

[stickdog]

288. You seem to be laboring to make a point here.

Please let me know if you ever actually deliver ...

[DoveTurnedHawk]

289. Doesn't Surprise Me You Failed to Pick Up On It

It was a couple of posts ago. Keep trying, though! You might be able to figure it out eventually. Maybe by 11/04!

DTH

[Code_Name_D]

299. Point meter (E\............F) Nope. Still stuck at zero.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

302. Of Course I Accept Your Unbiased and Fair-Minded Arbitration

:evilgrin:

DTH

[Code_Name_D]

345. Who has a Clark banner add in their mesages again? n/t

tt

[dd123]

318. The AFL-CIO should not be involved in encouraging coups.

If you think that makes someone anti-labor then so be it.

The fact is that Chavez was lawfully elected and our American Government was involved in trying to overthrow it.

I do not want my tax money going to overthrow a legitimately elected official, especially if he is being overthrown over oil.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

321. I Don't Buy the Premise

But even if I did, I think the foreign policy aims of the AFL-CIO and the Democrats are -- generally speaking -- going to be mostly fine with me.

DTH

[Tinoire]

344. Keep reading! AFL-CIO attacking France? What garbage.

Sometimes NED grants have worked in ways that are simply bizarre. In the mid-1980s, for example, the AFL CIO's FTUI approved a grant of $1.5 million to defend democ racy in France, which was astonishing for several reasons. First of all, French democracy in the 1980s did not appear to be so fragile that it required financial assistance from American taxpayers to sustain itself. The government of Francois Mitterrand was duly elected within a democratic system nearly as old as America's. The AFL-CIO, however, determined that France's socialist government was permitting a dangerous rise of communist influence. According to the late Irving Brown, Paris-based director of international relations for the AFL-CIO at the time of the incident: "France . . . is threatened by the Communist apparatus. . . . It is a clear and present danger if the present is thought of as 10 years from now."(15)

That mentality has resulted in AFL-CIO support for highly controversial causes. One of the French groups that received funding, the National Inter-University Union, was widely viewed as a cauldron of rightist extremism and xenophobia and rumored also to have ties to terrorists.(16) Surely, the U.S. government did not intend to fund authoritarian groups that work to undermine the government of a stable democratic nation.

Indeed, when NED's activities in France were publicized in an expose by the French newspaper LibÇration, the U.S. government disassociated itself from the endeavor. While no serious rift in American-French relations seems to have resulted from that diplomatic faux pas, it certainly illustrates the peril of allowing the AFL-CIO (or any other private group) to pursue an independent foreign policy with taxpayers' money.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-027.html

[FDRrocks]

287. The reaction to this thread is telling.

I hear what you're saying, stick.

[MrPrax]

297. More research than most of the Media

Blum is an reliable source on the company..
NED was a project from the git go...

So it really is Ruling Class 101
B Team for A Team...
Shitty that the people much rather watch what leno/rush/letterman/Russert/buchanan have to say on 'spin' instead of immoculating themselves from the BS and taking a long term look

[Tinoire]

320. Repost of previous research re Clark and have more

A good starting point is the
Markle Foundation The Task Force on National Security in the Information Age of which Clark is still a member of the according to their home page.

Notice Markle's pride in their work on Homeland Security Page and all their fascinating reports re HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL ID CARDS/DOCUMENT FRAUD/WIRETAPS/PRIVACY and ANALYSES OF NEW LEGISLATION, THE PATRIOT ACT, NEW FBI GUIDELINES, etc...

I don't get the warm tinglies about them. Nor do I get warm tinglies about
Zoe Baird, Markle's President being a current member of the Technology and Privacy Advisory Committee, which advises Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld regarding the Department of Defense's use of information technology to fight terrorism. and who has been an advisor to the Department of Defense defense transformation effort in the Bush Administration.

Some of Markle's fine work has really impressive titles such as Task force: Homeland Security Dept., not FBI, should shape info priorities

task force on national security Oct. 7 called for the new Department of Homeland Security to take the lead in shaping domestic information and intelligence priorities to inform policy-makers, rather than the FBI.

The recommendation was made in a report issued by the Markle Foundation's Task Force on National Security in the Information Age. The report, "Protecting America's Freedom in the Information Age," calls for a networked information technology system that shares information among local, state, regional and federal agencies.

People outside Washington, such as police officers, airport officials, FBI agents and emergency room doctors, do most information gathering; therefore, the government needs to use information technology to harness the power of this widely distributed information to protect Americans against terrorist threats, said Zoe Baird, president of the Markle Foundation and co-chairperson of the task force. Baird served the Carter administration as associate counsel to the president.

"Much of the information we need is local. Rather than creating a Washington-centric model, we need to create a networked, decentralized system," Baird said at a press conference unveiling the report at the National Press Club in Washington. Task force members were set to brief the president's homeland security director, Tom Ridge, later in the day.

This warrants more scrutiny and open discussion.

** The Brookings Institute describes itself in the following terms:

"A private, independent, nonprofit research organization, Brookings
seeks to improve the performance of American institutions, the effectiveness of government ..."

You can find out more about the Brookings Institue and its associations on the PNAC page here: http://www.thefourreasons.org/pnac.htm

A little look at their Board of Trustees (for those who care) reveals a mass of CEOs and other impressive business figures, sprinkled with reps from academia, and also including former and current heads of the World Bank.
------------

New Task Force Aims to Protect Nation with Better Information and Technology

The Markle Foundation in alliance with CSIS andThe Brookings Institution launches information and technology working group to improve national security

New York, NY and Washington, DC, March 6, 2002 – An independent, multi-sector task force to determine how information and technology can enhance national security was announced today by the Markle Foundation in alliance with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Brookings Institution.

The task force will make recommendations regarding:
· Technologies that enable the more effective collection and sharing of information in response to new security threats
· Aligning governmental structures and rules with the more information-intensive approach needed to counteract new security threats
· Balancing the expansion of information’s role in national security with safeguards for civil liberties – particularly in the privacy realm
· Strategies for deploying information more effectively for law enforcement, intelligence and homeland defense
· The role of the private sector in designing and implementing an information-based national security response, and the level of collaboration between private and public sectors

http://www.markle.org/news/_news_pressrelease_030602.stm

-----------

I'll also note that the Brookings Institution is not that Left and this has been discussed at DU in the past.


There is little question about the source of PNAC's influence. When it was founded in 1997 by two prominent neoconservatives, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, its charter, which called for a U.S. strategy of global pre-eminence based on military power, was signed by men who would become the most influential hawks in the Bush administration, including Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton, and Cheney's influential national security adviser, I. Lewis Libby.

"Thus, among the signers who have never before been associated with PNAC, are Robert Asmus, a former deputy secretary of state for Europe; Ivo Daalder, a prominent member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Robert Gelbard, a former U.S. ambassador to Chile and Indonesia; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Dennis Ross, his chief adviser on Palestinian-Israeli negotiations; Walter Slocombe, Clinton's top policy official at the Pentagon; and, most important, James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser who now heads foreign policy studies at the influential Brookings Institution."
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0303pnacletter_body.html


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=270701

[FubarFly]

323. Yeah, it looks like Nat. Security was a growth industry after 9/11

and Clark was in position to take full advantage. I do believe he is a patriot and his intentions were honorable, but he's also a deeply ambitious, analytical man who is able to justify the ends with the means. So what means did Clark endorse to justify his noble ends of American security in the wake of 9/11? He is talking against the PA and in favor of individual privacy now, but did his actions bely his words? Did he in fact support regressive and invasive technologies while working for the Markle Foundation? More specifics about Clark's actions and analyses are needed, but the red flag is up.

And it's waving vigorously.

[ozone_man]

331. Homeland Security and Clark's involvement creeps me out.

The top link on Markle doesn't seem to work. Lot's of great stuff for me to digest.

[Tinoire]

332. Here is the correct Markle link

http://www.markletaskforce.org/

Wesley Clark
Wesley K. Clark and Associates listed on front page as members

Markle works in alliance with:

Center for Strategic & International Studies

The Brookings Institution
_______________

Listed as part of Clark's bio:
He currently serves pro bono as a senior advisor for the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS), a director of the Atlantic Council, and a member of the board of the International Crisis Group.

[JVS]

333. kick

:kick:

[dkf]

335. In all fairness, JM says

Clark did not head the NED ever.

Of course, that is not exactly what we were surmising about Clark's role.

[Clark Can WIN]

337. Welcome again stickdog

Aren't you tired of digging your own fucking post up out of the garbage in order to stroke off you ego yet?

GAWD.

:crazy:

[SWPAdem]

338. I wonder how much he gets paid everytime it kicks up

n/t

[stickdog]

339. I wonder how much you folks are paid to control the debate with

your bullying here and elsewhere.

As for myself:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=460511#466799

[Clark Can WIN]

341. I say again

Aren't you tired of digging your own fucking post up out of the garbage in order to stroke off your ego yet?

GAWD.

:eyes:

[noiretextatique]

346. a little help

for stickdog's ego problem

[Forkboy]

348. Another kick for Stickdog