The National Endowment For Democracy & Clark

[KittyWampus]

Actually the NED has SEVERAL Democrats on its board some of whom were or are presently in Congress,
including: Sen. Bob Graham(Fla), Rep. Gregory Meeks (N.Y.), Howard Wolpe(Michigan), Lee Hamilton(Indiana),
Matthew McHugh (NY), Evan Bayh (Indiana). Clark was a Clinton appointee.

There are also Labor Representatives: Thomas Donahue (AFL-CIO) and Leon Lynch (United Steel of A)

It also has several arch Neoconservative/PNAC'ers such as Carlucci, Vin Weber, Frist, Fukuyama

The reason there are both White and Black hats is because the NED is BI-PARTISAN non profit organization
funded by Congress (after 1994 it accepts contributions from private sector).

The NED's mission is to "help strengthen Democratric Instititutions around the world". Like all government
organizations it has been used towards both good and BAD ends... as the Left and Right BOTH get to direct
where funds go. The funds are dispursed through the following four organizations (two are Democratic/Labor & two are
Republican).

"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)


The reason I am starting this thread is because a fellow DU'er started a thread with a HIGHLY INFLAMMATORY
AND MISLEADING TITLE: Trojan Horse: Wesley Clark's National Endowment for Democracy.

The original poster makes it seem that the NED is somehow directed soley by Clark and there is something
IMPLICITLY sinister about his being in the NED.

Said poster totally neglected to point out that another DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE BOB GRAHAM
was on the board or that the board was bipartisan. He also inferred that because the Board contains SOME
Neocons that Clark is one also. He also linked to a Translated Venezuelan website that had an article from
Red Voltaire (French)... which stated/implied Clark personally ADMINISTERED the Venezuelan coup (the NeoCons in the NED
allegedly directed funds to Chavez's opposition).

This thread is my attempt to bring fairness into the discussion, as opposed to blantant propaganda.
Thanks to the following posters for doing the research to get a FAIR AND BALANCED view of the NED:
JudiLyn, Dover, Zuni, Maha, bhunt70, Andym, LoneStarLiberal.

The original thread has over 325 posts and I can no longer respond to it due to my dial up.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=460511



....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Some of the Good Stuff done by fellows who got grants from the NED (which has gotten good words from
Amnesty International):

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.


....................................................................................................................................................................................
Unfortunately, the NED is alleged to have given funding to people who were part of the effort to overthrow the
semi-dictatorial but legally elected President of Venezuela- Hugo Chavez.

"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." (NYTIMES)


Here is some more info on the NED and it's role in the Coup(the IRI being REPUBLICAN ENTITY):

(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/)


...............................................................................................................................................................................
Here are some more Pros and Cons Re: NED:


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
.....................................................................................................................................................................................


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..."



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

Here is a reposting of some info by DU'er Andym... who obviously is interested in getting information rather than spreading propaganda:


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.

.....................................................................................................................................................................................

Clark May ver well propose closing NED activities and replacing it with a DEPARTMENT OF PEACE to replace it:


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

.....................................................................................................................................................................................................


Here's a repost that seems pretty evenhanded:
LoneStarLiberal (504 posts)
Fri Oct-03-03 03:50 PM
Response to Original message
176. In Defense of the NED

Edited on Fri Oct-03-03 04:07 PM by LoneStarLiberal

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.

[KittyWampus]

1. Moderators

I started this thread to continue discussion started here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=460511

The original thread has over 325 posts so I can't get on it to respond.
Further, thread title was HIGHLY INLAMMATORY AND MISLEADING.

[KoKo]

23. Thanks for this post. It's nice to see the "pro's" after the "cons."

Too bad we can't line them up side by side, but still, imagine that many who read the other thread will check this one out, even if they don't comment.

My view is that I'm tired of so many outside government "Think Tanks, Endowments, and Policy Groups" deciding what we should think and do. It goes beyond just "lobbying Congress." These groups "lobby the Media" and are vying for power in our government all the time. When one of them gains control, like PNAC, then we all have to pay the costs. They need to be controlled and lose their "tax exempt" status.

I don't know how it could be done...but it's all gone beyond what this country can deal with. :-( I would like to see one of our candidates get out in front of this at some point. But, who knows what funding one of them might have gotten from one of these groups who wants to make sure they have inlfluence in the new administration.

At least Dean and Kucinich, have had to go around with the "tin cup." Maybe they are cleaner than the others, but if either get's too popular, those groups will be in there with the donations, and they will have to take them. How can one turn down that extra money? Sad.

[Forkboy]

24. Yup..I agree KoKo

It's good to see an answer of this depth so we can see both sides.

[RandomUser]

38. Yeah, I like how it presents both sides

Much better than the one-sided accusation of the Trojan Horse thread.

[dkf]

2. Looks like Venezuela could not have been strictly right wing as the

AFL-CIO was also involved.

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030519&c=1&s=shorrock

Apparently, the AFL-CIO has a history of these types of activities including Chile (pre NED):

"That September 11, in 1973, was the day Chilean President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a bloody military coup that ended a brief experiment in democratic socialism and took the lives of Allende and thousands of Chilean workers, students and political activists. Today, many trade unionists remain haunted by the knowledge that their own federation, the AFL-CIO, played a key role in the US campaign, led by the Nixon Administration and the Central Intelligence Agency, to destabilize Chile in the years before the coup. From 1971 to 1973, the AFL-CIO's American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), one of four US-government-funded labor institutes created during the cold war, channeled millions of dollars to right-wing unions and political parties opposed to Allende's socialist agenda. That aid helped finance the revolt by Chile's professional class and fanned the flames of social unrest that provided the pretext for Gen. Augusto Pinochet's violent crackdown and the justification for his seventeen-year dictatorship. "

snip

Questions about the past have mingled with concerns about the AFL-CIO's current activities abroad, such as its financial support for the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV), which is allied with Venezuela's business elite in a bitter campaign to topple the leftist government of President Hugo Chávez. Initially, the AFL-CIO's program in Venezuela was financed with a $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which was created by Congress to support pro-US democratic movements abroad, and came to light last spring, shortly after Chavez was briefly overthrown in a military coup initially backed by the Bush Administration. To a few critics, the incident resembled the interventionist days of old--a comparison hotly denied by the AFL-CIO.

In response, labor councils on the West Coast have been pressing the AFL-CIO leadership to "come clean" about the past and set the course for the future by fully opening its archives--including materials from the Reagan era that remain off-limits to researchers--and creating a truth commission to analyze and publicize their contents. The strongest resolutions, passed in 2000 by the San Francisco and South Bay labor councils in California and in 2001 by the Washington State AFL-CIO, asked the federation to "renounce" what it did in Chile and elsewhere in labor's name, and allow union members and independent researchers to make a full accounting of the past. Last July the California Labor Federation put the weight of its 2 million members behind the effort with a resolution asking the AFL-CIO to open a dialogue about its government-funded foreign affairs activities, past and present, and "affirm a policy of genuine global solidarity in pursuit of economic and social justice."

snip

But with tensions still high in Venezuela, questions remain about the CTV and its tactics. Tellingly, strategic, non-Chavista unions in steel, oil and the public sector didn't support the CTV during the general strike last year. A member of a recent fact-finding delegation to Venezuela from the International Federation of Journalists wrote Gacek last summer that "the CTV was actively, directly involved in the illegal plotting for the April coup." Gacek rejected that assessment, but made it clear that the AFL-CIO was trying to defuse the situation. He is working with Brazil's new government and a "friends of Venezuela" labor group formed at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, to "bring down the temperature" in Caracas by negotiating amnesty for some of the 16,000 fired oil workers Chávez has threatened to jail. (Ortega, who was on Chávez's list, is now living in exile in Costa Rica.) Overall, said Gacek, the AFL-CIO wants Chávez to respect the "democratic rule of law" and insure that "violence and force are not employed to force regime change." Using labor funds to undermine a foreign government, he added forcefully, "goes against my fiber."


--Wow, fascinating stuff.

[KittyWampus]

4. The Previous Thread Had Too Many Posts

My dial up wouldn't load whole page to show actual dialouges... I DID see some posts towards the end
that mentioned the AFL-CIO.

Ugh, it seems the NED has and does some good things but is also being used to do some nefarious
stuff. It has managed to fly under the radar to a large extent, probably because it is quasi-governmental.

The solution would be to dissolve it and create a DEPARTMENT that has Congresssional oversight, IMO.

Here's some info from Boloboffin's weblog. He has some really great commentary at the end.
....................................................................................................................................................................

The raging debate is over the NED's role in the Venezuelan crisis early in the Bush Administration. ...

The NED does its own grants, but it also favors four different organizations as grantees....

American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS– commonly called the Solidarity Center)
Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE)
International Republican Institute (IRI)
National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI)

NED gives grants to these groups, for programs that promote:

pluralism and free and fair elections (IRI and NDI)
free markets and economic reforms (CIPE)
independent trade unions (ACILS)

Each of these four grantees receives an equal portion of NED's grant budget– and each program is
carefully developed with NED program staff and approved by NED’s board of directors, just like any other grantee.

Who are NED's grantees?

The IRI and the NDI are essentially arms of the the Republican Party and Democratic Party respectively.
ACILS has the same relationship with the AFL-CIO. These three organizations were part of the quadrupling, of NED grant Venezuelan organizations in 2001, the year of the coup.......

Of particular concern is $154,377 given by the endowment to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., to assist the main Venezuelan labor union in advancing labor rights.

The Venezuelan union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, led the work stoppages that galvanized the opposition to Mr. Chavez. The union's leader, Carlos Ortega, worked closely with Pedro Carmona Estanga, the businessman who briefly took over from Mr. Chavez, in challenging the government.

The endowment also provided significant resources to the foreign policy wings of the Republican and Democratic parties for work in Venezuela, which sponsored trips to Washington by Chavez's critics.

The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs was given a $210,500 grant to promote the accountability of local government. The International Republican Institute, which has an office in Venezuela, received a grant of $339,998 for political party building. On April 12, the day of the takeover, the group hailed
Mr. Chavez's ouster. "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country," the institute's
president, George A. Folsom, said in a statement. Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of
systematic repression by the government of Hugo Chavez."

[KittyWampus]

8. Boloboffin's Commentary

What a nice sticky wicket of a situation this is. But I'm thinking that Clark's position on the NED board isn't
the automatic black eye that some people at DU are claiming it to be. The board is directly involved in the
grant process, but these sub-granters are then responsible for distributing it to the final recipients. Since
the labor unions and the major political parties are three of the four main grantees (the fourth grantee is
the foreign policy arm of the US Chamber of Commerce), I'd imagine the board to be a check and balance on
these four main groups, with political appointees from each party in evidence on the board. The closest
analogy I'd risk
is the post-WW2 administration of Germany under the auspices of France, Britain, the United States and
Soviet Russia, which was no model of harmonious relationship.

What we have here is a pile of money coming out of the government. Four groups with differing objectives
(some having closer connections with each other than others) get the lion's share of the money and the
board determines how that money is divided up.

The AFL-CIO appears to have its behind covered. Although its money went to the CTV, a labor union with
close ties to the parties Chavez displaced and a major part of the failed coup, the money appears to have
been spent the way it was intended to be spent.

For some observers, the most troubling grant was that to the IRI , because of its apparently false claims
about the institution's work and its director's strong support for Chavez' ouster. The grant amount for the
IRI, which has an office in Caracas, more than sextupled from $50,000 in 2000 to $339,998
in 2001.

In an April 12 facsimile sent to news media, IRI President George A. Folsom rejoiced over Chavez' removal l
from power. "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country," he wrote.
"Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of systematic repression by the government of Hugo
Chavez."

Fanning the concerns about how the IRI may have utilized its NED funds are doubts regarding the accuracy
of its reporting on activities in Venezuela. According to the organization's website, it has several times
collaborated with a Venezuelan partner organization called the Youth Participation Foundation (FPJ).
Indeed, working with the FPJ was the primary purpose of the IRI's $50,000 year 2000 grant. But dozens of
Venezuelan
politicians, activists, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) representatives interviewed for this
story--including several who have worked with the IRI--had never heard of the FPJ.

According to the IRI's Caracas office, the FPJ ceased to exist "several years ago." According to the IRI
website, prior to the 1998 elections the FPJ arranged a pair of youth forums featuring major presidential
candidates. But neither the candidates nor the television station supposedly involved had any record or
memory of such events.

So the GOP was responsible for almost half of NED's funding increase to Venezuelan organizations in 2001.

Since Clark had last served in the Clinton administration, and stepped into the board on January 2001 after
voting for Gore in November 2000, my hunch is that he was on the Democratic side of the agenda even then
We'd have to know exactly what role he played in the funding of the Venezuelan grants, what he and other
board members were told the money was for, and whether this resembled the actual way the money was
used.

And so it's far too early to imagine him with his hands around Hugo Chavez's neck.

[Donna Zen]

50. Kick

n/t

[dkf]

3. According to this website Republicans, Democrats and Unions used $

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/cummings2.html

"The National Endowment for Democracy has spent to date, as far as we know, $877,000 on a variety of activities in Venezuela that increased as the situation deteriorated, including a $154,377 grant to the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the international arm of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to assist the main Venezuelan labor union, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers, in trying to overthrow Hugo Chavez, the elected president. So much for democracy.

This is not news. If anyone has bothered to read Ted Morgan's biography of Jay Lovestone, A Covert Life, they would know that Lovestone, for years the head of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s international division, was a CIA operative working under James Angelton, who was his case officer. Now, this stuff is done under the auspices of the National Endowment for Democracy.

But that's not the worst part. The endowment also provided significant resources, according to The New York Times, " to the foreign policy wings of the Republican and Democratic parties for work in Venezuela, which sponsored trips to Washington by Chavez critics." $210,500 went to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs to "promote the accountability of local government." The International Republican Institute, which actually has an office in Venezuela, got $449,998 for "political party building."

[even]

5. That site.

It has no credibility.

[dkf]

6. Looks like he got that info from the NYT

Here is NYT:

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.

snip
The National Democratic Institute for International Affairs was given a $210,500 grant to promote the accountability of local government. The International Republican Institute, which has an office in Venezuela, received a grant of $339,998 for political party building. On April 12, the day of the takeover, the group hailed Mr. Chávez's ouster. "The Venezuelan people rose up to defend democracy in their country," the institute's president, George A. Folsom, said in a statement. "Venezuelans were provoked into action as a result of systematic repression by the government of Hugo Chávez."

Edit for link:

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

[wyldwolf]

12. NYT

[wyldwolf]

7. Thanks for this...

... I knew there was something more (or less) to that whole "tojan horse" fable, and you and those other DU'ers you mention wrap it up nicely.

[RandomUser]

33. I agree

This helps to shed a more balanced light on the issue.

[Mairead]

9. I think we need to remember that, to NED members, 'democracy'

is almost certainly a synonym for 'corporatocracy', just like almost all other establishment definitions, such as 'peace', 'freedom', etc. They're not the simple definitions that we proles favor. One test would be to see how many people are on the board who we would all agree are on our side, such as Kucinich, Barbara Lee, etc. Bet there aren't any, or maybe a token.

Whence the support for deposing Chavez.

[KittyWampus]

10. Bill Supporting Tibetan People-Paul Wellstone

Mentions NED as a group to send money to monitor human rights in Tibet in a bill sponsored by Wellstone and Jeffords!
This is the sort of thing a DEPARTMENT OF PEACE WOULD DO FOLKS!
Like the one Dennis Kucinich and General Clark are advocating.

..................................................................................................................................................................................

To support the aspirations of the Tibetan people to safeguard their distinct identity.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

May 9, 2001

Mrs. FEINSTEIN (for herself, Mr. THOMAS, Mr. LEAHY, Mr. JEFFORDS, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. WELLSTONE,
Mrs. BOXER, Mr. AKAKA, Mr. FEINGOLD, Mr. KENNEDY, Mrs. MURRAY, and Mr. TORRICELLI) introduced the following bill;
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

A BILL- To support the aspirations of the Tibetan people to safeguard their distinct identity.
This Act may be cited as `Tibetan Policy Act of 2001'.
The purpose of this Act is to support the aspirations of the Tibetan people to safeguard their distinct identity.

SEC. 9. TIBETAN REFUGEES.
(b) EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE PROGRAMS- Of the amounts authorized to be appropriated for
educational and cultural exchange programs for fiscal years 2002, 2003, and 2004--

(2) $250,000 for each such fiscal year is authorized to be available only for assistance to nongovernmental
organizations, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, for the purpose of providing training and
education in democracy activities for Tibetans and monitoring the human rights situation in Tibet.

[RandomUser]

34. Careful

The clark-haters are going to say Wellstone and Jeffords are evil and diabolical creatures of the NED :)

[wyldwolf]

11. kick

[wyldwolf]

13. Another kick for cryingshame!

[wyldwolf]

14. And uno mas kick!

[KittyWampus]

15. Wyldwolf, If Anyone Is Truly Interested In The NED

And reforming the way the United States supports and encourages the growth of Democracy worldwide,
they'd contribute to this thread.

Please don't kick it... the information will be archived for future reference.

[Donna Zen]

16. Wellstone

was appointed to Mondale's (one of the founders) seat when he joined the Senate.

The organization was meant to do the right thing. Notice that the talk in Venzuela was a project of IRI (repub.) wing. Clark works with the small business branch of the organization. The reference site is part of the long thread. Everyone overlooked it trying to hang him with the all the PNAC accussations.

Hey_if someone said to you: "so you want to look around the world and find something good to fund" what would you say?

Can the rubugs fuck up a good thing? Look what they're doing to our country. Look what they are doing to the UN. Look what they are doing to the flow of honest information.

Clark believes in internationalism...he believes we will create peace by building schools and hospitals, promoting stable economies, and supporting outlets of open dialogue. He believes that meeting humanitarian needs, and advancing human rights are much more effective than bombs in fighting terrorism. "you don't win heart and minds if your bombing people."

I am chosing to believe him.

[RandomUser]

32. Good point

A organization with Wellstone, Graham, Soros, Mondale, and Clark, can't be all bad, though obviously there are flaws in it. It's not an unmitigated crime to be on the NED board.

[juajen]

19. Another kick

N/T

[Donna Zen]

17. This statement:

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.

makes not sense. Milosevic was long gone by the time any of these people would have served on the NED. Also Clark didn't serve with NDI.

[KittyWampus]

18. The Mission Is Good-But It Should Be A Department

so that it would get Congressional oversight.

Again, this is what Kucinich and Clark have mentioned a Department of Peace!

Unfortunately, even a Dept. of Peace would have both Dem's and Rep.'s and all it takes is a jerk like Ashcroft to come along and hijack the Department's Mission.

Nothing is perfect.... and everything is open to abuse.

[andym]

25. Ammended statement now makes more sense

I previousely wrote:

"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."


Donna Zen wrote:
makes not sense. Milosevic was long gone by the time any of these people would have served on the NED. Also Clark didn't serve with NDI.

This is a good point.

OK, here is a more clear statement of my conjecture. Clark and Holbrook were appointed by Clinton as "Democrats" to help advise the NED's effort to weaken the power of Milosevic and his cronies, so that they could not regain power in the newly "democratic" Serbia. Let me state it is only a conjecture, based on the Balkans experise of Clark and Holbrooke.

Here is the timeline:

Clark and Holbrook were appointed in January 2001 just at the end of the Clinton admininstration.
http://www.ned.org/events/articles/mar2701b.html

I leave Albright out of this, because she was in the NDI, which given the decentralized NED heirarchy would mean that she would not be working directly with Holbrooke or Clark.

Milosevic resigned on October 6, 2000, but was not arrested until March 30, 2001 (after Clark's appointment).

Milosevic cronies continued to destabilize Serbia until at least this year, when they assassinated Serbia's prime minister.
eg, http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/14/serbia.djindjic/
The assassination resulted in a major crackdown on Milosevic's allies.

[Donna Zen]

27. If NED was involved with Milo

Two months at a grant funding inst. doesn't seem like much time, especially since Milo was hiding out.

One of the grants NED did give to that area was an indy media equipment grant. I suppose that could be looked upon as somehow opposing Milo if you want to.

So Clark arrives with Holbrooke? I read an article about a party Holbrooke gave for Clark...I gather they just laugh and tell stories about touring the world together. Clark does crazy imitations.

What's really curious is why the IRI has an office in Venzuela. Why are they spending tax payer money on IRI offices at all?

[andym]

46. A Further amendment

Board members of the NED cannot be selected by the executive branch. In fact, if a member joins the executive they must resign their position
at NED. This is done so that the NED can be seen to be "independent" of the US govt.

http://www.ned.org/about/nedhistory.html#Independence

Of course, at the same time the board at the current time includes 3 Democratic members of congress (senate + house) and 3 Republican members. The logic being that congress doesn't represent the US govt.

Therefore, my conjecture that Clark and Holbrooke were "Clinton's appointees" cannot be true.

Board members are selected by previous board members, and are limited to 3 year terms.

The question is who was on the board in late 2000.

[KittyWampus]

48. Thanks For Pointing Out My Gaffe

In original post at top of thread I mentioned Clark as "Clinton appointee" and one can only say he was appointed during Clinton's Presidency.

[stickdog]

20. The NED is a seriously fucked up organization that does SOME good things.

The reason there are both White and Black hats is because the NED is BI-PARTISAN non profit organization funded by Congress (after 1994 it accepts contributions from private sector).

Do we have any reason to believe that Clark was more likely to wear a white than a black hat?

[Donna Zen]

21. Every reason

He was appointed by Clinton and the branch he was associated with was not part of the coup attempt (IRI). I know he was listed as part of the small business entity.

Soros was on at the same time. Where was he located in the structure?

Also, the branches seem to work on individual grants/projects. Aside from a few gatherings, I don't think they would meet together very often. No one likes meetings, and limiting them to as few as possible would seem the probable structure. Assign tasks, fax papers back and forth, and prepare a presentation package for Congress.

I doubt if anyone is being paid for doing this.

[stickdog]

22. Any documentation for your claims? (NT)

[Donna Zen]

26. On the first thread

the really long one that locks up my computer, one of the posts cited several article snips. This one had Clark's name with the (C???) initials indicating the business and economic branch. IRI and the Unions were involved in Venuzuela. I know that is not what you wanted, but I seriously can't go back into that thread. I do remember reading it because I kept wondering why no one was putting 2+2 together. If the IRI put the money into the conference set up, and Clark didn't seem to belong to that part of NED, then putting him in the "ringmasters" role didn't fit.

As far as desolving this org and creating a new Dept., I personally would like to see that happen. Currently all of the foreign aid is suspect. I mean what really happens to the humanitarian aid that we give to Egypt? Does it make it to the people in the form of schools and roads?

The way I see it, we are continue to provide foreign aid and should. (actually by world standards we are kinda cheap) Having guide lines, a specific policy and real over sight might not solve all of the problems, but it could help. Also, the way it is distributed now, individual countries who are current getting aid just keep their hand out. While smaller more needy countries get short changed.

Oh_sd, if you meant how things work. Well, no one on these committees goes there everyday. Plus all of these folks, bl and wh hats have time management skills and understand org (TQM). Some of them are very busy stealing our tax dollars. There is no reason for the entire body to hang out together, aside from the occasional luncheon and key noter, because the groups meet to consider various grant applications and proposals offered by different presenters. Hell_the IRI plot was probably hatched among just a few people and presented to the IRI group with the best spin on it.

[stickdog]

31. I didn't think so. (NT)

[Code_Name_D]

39. Than get rid of the banners.

Its the frigin pro-Clark banner adds that slowes every thing down.

[TLM]

28. Yet he was also a lobbyist for Henry Kissinger....

sounds much more black hat to me.


A lobbyist for Kissinger in exactly the same kind of corportist profiteer groups as the carlyle group, frank Carlucci is also in the NED with Clark.

[stickdog]

42. Your very first claim is bogus.

You say: He was appointed by Clinton.

http://www.ned.org/events/articles/feb0201.html

Carlucci, Clark, Finley, Fukuyama, Holbrooke, Weber Join NED Board of Directors

The Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) announced on Feb. 2 that it has elected six new members. They are:

* Frank Carlucci: Former Secretary of Defense and National Security Advisor in the Reagan Administration, he is currently Chairman of the Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C. based merchant bank.
* General Wesley K. Clark (US Army Ret.): Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (1997-2000) and Commander in Chief of the U.S. European Command, he is currently associated with the Stephens Group, Inc. working on high technology venture capital.
* Julia Finley: A prominent Republican Party activist, she has worked actively on issues related to NATO expansion and the conflict in the Balkan region.
* Francis Fukuyama: Distinguished political scientist and author of books on wide ranging subjects, including The End of History and The Last Man, he is the Omer L. And Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University.
* Richard C. Holbrooke: Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Amb. Holbrooke has had a long career as a professional diplomat and has also served as Editor of Foreign Policy, chairman of Refugees International and the International Rescue Committee, Peace Corps director, and has worked as an investment banker.
* Vin Weber: Former U.S. Representative from Minnesota, he is the managing partner for the Washington, D.C. office of the consulting firm, Clark and Weinstock.

This document is dated 2/2/01. It says that the new members were elected by the board. So what does Clinton have to do with it?

Can you offer any reason that we should not doubt the rest of your unsourced claims just as thoroughly as your first?

[KittyWampus]

49. I Made A Sincere Mistake Stickdog

In trying to pull together information in a non-hysterical way.

Sorry.

[rhite5]

29. Thank you, cryingshame, for starting this thread and

pulling together all of this information.

I had not seen the long (300+ posts) thread or even this thread when I made a comment to you several hours ago on another thread. (something to the effect of , "better do some research on NED") Sorry. I am sure I came across as a smart-aleck.

The more I learn the more sure I am that we MUST have a clear line of demarcation in our government between an NGO and a taxpayer-funded entity. NED badly muddles the two definitions and somehow manages to escape ALL congressional oversight while spending a ton of taxpayer money through a complex burocracy.

It makes liberal use of nice-sounding terms to do activities that turn out to actually be the opposite of what they say they are. We have seen a lot of this in the Bush Administration (PATRIOT Act, is a good example of this), but it started long ago. Remember the names Reagan Admin gave to the two sides in Nicaragua?

I would also suggest that a labor organization which was organized by a businessman or by corporations (Venezuela) is by definition NOT a LABOR organization, only a fake one.

Accepting an appointment to a board of directors of something like NED may certainly be ill-advised, but it is not incriminating. If Clark chooses to remain on that board while running for President of the United States, I think would be a mistake because it does send a distasteful message.

[Donna Zen]

44. The long thread

was a mess and a flame out. This thread contains much of what was relevent both pro and con.

if Clark chooses to remain on that board while running for President of the United States...

Okay...Clark will be out of NED at the end of this year, because as a Director he is term limited. I don't suppose he has any say so over who else sits on that board with him. And yes sd, I was wrong, although I do remember the post, Clark is not a part of any of the branches of NED.

The Dem. congress critters including members of BCC are all actively serving. Should they resign? Prehaps...but then that would just shift more money to the IRI branch.

NED has a complex structure. The Board, bi-partisan, administers the public endowed funds. The four entities make applications to access those funds in an effort to make grants, but are independent of the board and may also raise their own private monies.

It would seem that NED does more good than harm. They recently had Saad in to speak. Also, the Dem. branch works to monitor elections, and has supported women entering politics in third world countries. The grants are closely monitored.

What offended me about this and many other discussions, was the jumping onto the half-fact-equals-a-bogus-truth bandwagon as long as it proves a pre-established conclusion. That kind of thinking is at the core of how the bush administration governs. Deciding what your answer will be and then twisting the facts to prove it will not make us a better or more informed people. It will make us much more like our enemy. Different agendas but the same old shit for brains.
________________________________________

NED's very mission, particularly in its early days, has been challenged on ideological grounds. Opponents on the far left believed that promoting democracy was tantamount to interfering in the internal affairs of other countries in the service of U.S. foreign policy interests. Although a few antagonists continue on occasion to voice opposition, their numbers have dwindled, particularly with changes after the Cold War in attitudes on the left toward U.S. internationalism.

More significant opposition to the Endowment was voiced in the early years by some elements of the human rights community, who sometimes mischaracterized NED's natural interest in free and fair elections as its sole focus, while arguing that such elections do not necessarily guarantee the protection of basic rights. NED's programmatic emphasis on long-term democratic development, the building of civil society, and funding indigenous human rights groups has won over many of these early critics, and in fact has led to a substantial coalescence of interest between NED and the human rights community in a number of countries.

http://www.ned.org/about/nedhistory.html#Left/%20Right%20Opposition

On balance, the world would seem to need some help. If crack pot programs slide through, does that mean we throw the baby out? Jimmy Carter, our sometimes hero, believed strongly in NED; I for one think he would suggest we fix it. Oh well?

[RandomUser]

30. Thank you for putting things into perspective

A welcomed fresh breath of air.

[stickdog]

43. Clarkie "perspective" = thick fog

What reason do we have to believe that General Clark was one of the ostensible "good guys" at the NED?

[LoneStarLiberal]

35. Huzzah and Good Job!

Not just because you quoted me!

That thread got pretty unwieldy size-wise. There was a lot of good information there, both in favor of the National Endowment and against the National Endowment.

There are organizations and think tanks that are blatantly partisan in either one direction or another; there are also those that either by choice or by mandate are bi-partisan.

I do not ignore some of the ill things done by groups who have been awarded money from the NED. But I also will not ignore the many good things done with grants from the NED.

[Postman]

36. CIA uses NED funds to conduct clandestine operations....

According to ex-CIA officer Philip Agee


http://www.counterpunch.org/agee08092003.html

[KittyWampus]

37. Agee Was A KGB Informant

Who outed hundreds of CIA operatives thereby endangering them and countless civilians. One might want to take what he said with a grain of salt...

Agee was exposed in The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB by Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin

The following bio seems pretty evenhanded and not really in dispute.

Personally, I think the left would do well not to lionize him.

The NED may have been an outlet for covert stuff... I don't know.

........................................................................................................................................

Philip Agee (KGB code name: Pont), former CIA operations officer was the CIA's first
ideological defector.

He had been forced to resign from CIA in 1968 after complaints at his heavy drinking, poor
financial management and attempts to proposition wives of American diplomats.

He remained in the West.

In 1973 he approached the KGB residency in Mexico City and offered information about CIA
operations. The suspicious KGB resident, however, found Agee's offer too good to be true,
concluded that he was part of a CIA plot and turned him away.

Agee then went to the Cubans, who welcomed him with open arms.Agee himself
acknowledged: "Representatives of the Communist Party of Cuba gave important
encouragement at a time when I doubted that I would be able to find the additional information
I needed."

In his book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," published in 1975 he identified approximately
250 CIA officers and agents.

While Agee was writing his book in Britain he maintained contact with the KGB.

On November 16, 1976 Agee was served a deportation order that required him to leave
England.

KGB and the Left tried to stop the deportation but Agee was eventually forced to leave
England for Holland on June 3, 1977. He later moved to Germany.

In 1978 Agee and a small group of supporters began publishing the Covert Action Information
Bulletin in order to promote what Agee called "a worldwide campaign to destabilize the CIA
through exposure of its operations and personnel."

During the Iran hostage crisis in 1979, Agee offered to exchange CIA documents about Iran
for the Americans held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Soon after, the State Department
revoked his passport on national security grounds.

He traveled on passports issued by, successively, Maurice Bishop's Marxist-Leninist regime
in Grenada, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and an official German identification
document normally given to war refugees.

After years of living in Hamburg, Germany Agee has decided to make Cuba his home and
the seat of his new business.

Agee resurfaced in Havana in 2000, where he started what he says is the island's first
independent travel business in 40 years.

[stickdog]

41. So Agee outed CIA operations. That doesn't change the fact that the NED

is CIA-lite.

The fact that the NED is used to destabilize foreign governments is common knoweledge.

They don't even try to hide this fact other than to balance it by also funding other more benign pro-democracy movements.

[Bertrand]

45. You're missing the point

you keep referring to the "NED" as if it's some sort of centralized top-down structure. I mean, the "NED" gave 600K to get rid of Pinochet.

[stickdog]

47. So it's decentralized.

And?

That somehow proves that Clark was only doing great things there? Why?

How do we know Clark wasn't working with the worst of the worst?

I mean, this is a Kissinger lobbyist, a CAPPS II lobbyist for Acxiom and a member of the Markle Foundation's National Security Taskforce:

http://www.markletaskforce.org/

[RandomUser]

40. kick for the night folks...n/t

no text