Oslo Freedom Forum: US Proxies Train and Plan for the Next "Ukraine"

June 5, 2022 (The New Atlas) - The Oslo Freedom Forum serves as the latest iteration of the US State Department's training ground for subversion around the globe - following in line US-sponsored unrest in Ukraine in 2014 and the so-called "Arab Spring" in 2011. 

Who is attending the Oslo Freedom Forum, what takes place there, and what is expected of attendees once they return to their respective nations?

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty Cover Up Human Rights Abuses

November 11, 2020 (Brian Berletic - LD) - Organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International regularly work in a one-sided manner to advance a political agenda, not uphold human rights advocacy. 

I explain why, how these organizations actually enable human rights abuses rather than defend against them, and why it is important to remove them from a society’s civil society space and replace them with actual organizations that defend human rights.

References:

Thaiger - 52 year old Russian head-butted by Thai protest leader in Pattaya: 

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/protests/52-year-old-russian-head-butted-by-thai-protest-leader-in-pattaya

Human Rights Watch - George Soros to Give $100 million to Human Rights Watch: 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2010/09/07/george-soros-give-100-million-human-rights-watch

Amnesty International Funding: 

https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/40000/fin400122010en.pdf

US National Endowment for Democracy - Thailand 2019: 

https://www.ned.org/region/asia/thailand-2019/

Why Taking US NED Money is Wrong

The National Endowment for Democracy has as much to do with promoting "democracy" as the illegal US invasion of Iraq - code name "Operation Iraqi Freedom" had to do with bringing "freedom" to the Iraqi people. And as it turns out the same circle of regime change promoters are/were involved in both. 

November 5, 2020 (Brian Berletic - LD) - I cover the US National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) board of directors - pointing out how many of them have been involved in some of the worst crimes against humanity of the 21st century including promoting and even participating in the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. 

I also explain why taking US NED money poses a danger to national security - and specifically why Thai agitators taking the money pose a danger to Thailand’s peace, stability, and future.

References: 

NED funding - THAILAND 2019: https://www.ned.org/region/asia/thailand-2019/

NED Board of Directors: https://www.ned.org/about/board-of-directors/

CBS News - Elliott Abrams, convicted of lying about Iran-Contra, named special representative for Iran: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elliott-abrams-iran-contra-named-special-representative-iran/

London Guardian - US diplomat convicted over Iran-Contra appointed special envoy for Venezuela: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/26/elliott-abrams-venezuela-us-special-envoy

NED BoD - Ambassador Victoria Nuland: https://www.ned.org/experts/victoria-nuland/

CNAS Supporters: https://www.cnas.org/support-cnas/cnas-supporters

Reuters - Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ukraine-tape/leaked-audio-reveals-embarrassing-u-s-exchange-on-ukraine-eu-idUSBREA1601G20140207

NED BoD  - George Weigel: https://www.ned.org/experts/george-weigel/

American Magazine - The Just War Case for War: https://www.americamagazine.org/issue/428/article/just-war-case-war

NED BoD - Scott Carpenter: https://www.ned.org/experts/scott-carpenter/

NED BoD - Senator Tim Kaine: https://www.ned.org/experts/senator-tim-kaine/Tim Kaine - Kaine Statement On Withdrawal Of U.S. Troops From Northern Syria: https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/kaine-statement-on-withdrawal-of-us-troops-from-northern-syria

US-funded Thai Protests: iLaw

 November 4, 2020 (Brian Berletic - LD) - iLaw is a US government-funded front petitioning the Thai government to have the entire Thai constitution rewritten and rewritten in such a way as to make it easier for US-backed opposition parties to get into power. 

I cover iLaw's US government funding and why it seeks to change Thailand's constitution and how it threatens Thai-Chinese relations and ultimately Thailand's economic future.

References: 

Bangkok Post - Three parties want to rewrite charter: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/1485300/three-parties-want-to-rewrite-charter

Thai PBS - Thanathorn vows to bring people onto streets after rally in downtown Bangkok: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/thanathorn-vows-to-bring-people-onto-streets-after-rally-in-downtown-bangkok/

Bangkok Post - Protesters reiterate 3 key demands: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/1998947/protesters-reiterate-3-key-demands

Nation Thailand - iLaw launches petition for charter rewrite: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30392491

iLaw - About Us: https://ilaw.or.th/about

Bloomberg - Thailand Needs Hyperloop, Not China-Built High-Speed Rail, Junta Critic Says: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-01/junta-critic-says-thailand-needs-hyperloop-not-china-built-rail

Bangkok Post - Chinese embassy condemns Thai politician's meeting with Hong Kong activist: https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1769959/chinese-embassy-condemns-thai-politicians-meeting-with-hong-kong-activist

Thai Protests are Anti-Chinese, Not "Pro-Democracy"

September 30, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - NEO) - Ongoing protests in Thailand appearing very similar to those recently seen in Hong Kong are no coincidence.

They are part of an admitted "Pan-Asian Alliance" that - while claiming to be "pro-democracy" are in reality created by the US government and aimed directly at Beijing.

Thailand has tilted too close to Beijing for Washington's liking and as a response, has scheduled Thailand for destabilization and if possible, regime change.

Thailand Tilting "Too Close" To China

 

dChina is Thailand's largest and most important trading partner, its largest foreign direct investor, and its largest source of tourism with more Chinese tourists coming to Thailand each year than all Western nations combined.

Thailand is also hosting one of the key routes of China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative with construction already ongoing for high-speed rail that will connect China, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and eventually Singapore.

Finally and perhaps most upsetting for the US is that Thailand has begun replacing its aging US military hardware through a series of major Thai-Chinese arms deals including the purchasing of main battle tanks, other armored vehicles, naval vessels including up to 3 submarines, and jointly-developed arms programs like the DTI-1 multiple rocket launcher system.

Thailand has also recently replaced some of its US-built Blackhawk helicopters with Russian Mi-17V-5's.

To counter this, the US has mobilized opposition groups and NGOs it has funded in Thailand for years to now demand the current government step down and the nation's constitution be rewritten, paving the way for US-backed billionaire-led opposition parties of Thaksin Shinawatra and Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit into power. These are opposition parties that have long served US interests in the past and have explicitly promised to roll back Thai-Chinese relations should they take power again.

US NED Was Behind Hong Kong's Unrest, and are Behind Thailand's Now 

The US was indisputably behind the protests in Hong Kong with the political opposition and protest leaders confirmed to be recipients of US government cash via notorious regime change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

Many of the protest leaders literally flew to Washington DC or visited the US consulate in Hong Kong to receive aid, directives, and other forms of support.

In Thailand too, virtually every aspect of the protests are funded by the US government.

Worse still is that the US is attempting to stitch these various movements together to form a regional front against Beijing with Thai protest leaders regularly traveling to meet their US-funded counterparts in Hong Kong and Taiwan and vice versa while creating an online army with the help of US-based social media giants to stack public narratives in their favor.

It will be a front that if regime change in any or all of the nations currently targeted by Washington in Asia is successful, will transform the region from a rising global economic power to a dysfunctional warzone not entirely unlike the Middle East.

US Funds Thai Protest Leaders 

The core leadership of Thailand's protests includes Anon Nampa of the US NED-funded "Thai Lawyers for Human Rights" (TLHR). Anon Nampa leads every major rally, taking the stage and delivering the opposition's demands to the current government including demands for regime change.

TLHR's founder had in the past admitted that the organization "receives all its funding from international donors," in an interview given to the English-language newspaper, Bangkok Post.

TLHR's US government funding was openly displayed on the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) website in 2014.

Its name has since been removed from NED's website but continues to receive US funding through the NED via the "Union for Civil Liberty" (UCL) of which it is a member.

The UCL is still listed on NED's current webpage for programs it funds in Thailand. TLHR is listed as a member of UCL on its official website next to other recipients of US NED funding including the Cross Cultural Foundation, the Human Rights Lawyers Association, and the Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL).

US Funds Orgs Trying to Rewrite Thailand's Constitution 

Another of Anon Nampa's demands is the rewriting of the Thai constitution. These efforts have been spearheaded by an organization called "iLaw" - also funded by the US NED. 

Thai-based English-language newspaper The Nation in an article titled, "iLaw launches petition for charter rewrite," would claim:

The Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw), a human rights NGO, has launched a campaign seeking signatures from 50,000 voters to sponsor a motion for a Constitution rewrite.

The organization's US government funding is not mentioned in the article, but can easily be found on NED's official website under the name, "Internet Law Reform Dialogue" (iLaw).

On iLaw's own website under "About Us" it admits:

Between 2009 and  2014 iLaw has received funding support from the Open Society Foundation, the Heinrich Böll Foundation and a one-time support grant from Google.

Between 2015 to present iLaw receives funding from funders as listed below1. Open Society Foundation (OSF)2. Heinrich Böll Stiftung (HBF)3. National Endowment for Democracy (NED)4. Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR)5. American Jewish World Servic (AJWS)6. One-time support donation from Google and other independent donors

Other groups working to rewrite Thailand's constitution include "ConLab" or "Constitution Lab" (on Facebook) who do so in partnership with US government-funded iLaw and which recently held an event at the US Embassy's "American Corner" at Chiang Mai University.

One can only wonder what the US response would be if Russian or Chinese-funded groups attempted to rewrite the US constitution.

US Even Funds Groups Padding out Rallies with "Poor People" 

Filling up rallies is done not only through the billionaire-led opposition parties of Pheu Thai and Move Forward (previously Future Forward) but also through groups like the "Assembly of the Poor." 

Assembly of the Poor leader Baramee Chaiyarat has recently vowed to bring his supporters to any future mass rallies in Bangkok.  

But just like the protest leaders and legal arms of the protests, Assembly of the Poor is also funded by the US government via the NED. 

On the NED's official website an organization called "Thai Poor Act" has been listed for years, receiving millions of Thai Baht in funding. Its funding falls under a section titled, "Supporting Grassroots Engagement in Promoting Democracy," which is precisely what Assembly of the Poor claims to do.

Evidence proving that Thai Poor Act and Assembly of the Poor are actually the same group turned up on Thai Poor Act's now disused Facebook page where it published a 2011 documented titled, "Incorporation Contract of Establishment of a Body of Individuals" listing Assembly of the Poor leader Baraemee Chaiyarat as "manager" of Thai Poor Act. 

Thai Poor Act's YouTube channel features only one video, but the video begins with a title stating clearly, "Assembly of the Poor presents..." 

Clearly they are the same organization, led by the same individual - Baramee Chaiyarat - and funded by the US government to pad out protests. 

US Funds Local Media to Promote Protests 

There are various fake news fronts posing as "independent media" in Thailand also funded by the US government via NED and providing lopsidedly positive coverage for the protests and each of the above mentioned organizations and individuals - never once mentioning their collective US government funding. 

This includes Prachatai which receives millions of Thai Baht a year from the US government to advance narratives that divide and destabilize Thailand and promote US interests within Thai borders. It is also an echo chamber for US State Department talking points including US policy regarding the Mekong River, the South China Sea, and other opposition fronts the US backs in the region.

It is listed on the US NED's official website under the name "Foundation for Community Educational Media," which also appears at the very bottom of Prachatai's website.

The media front's "executive director" Chiranuch Premchaiporn is also a "fellow" of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Building a "Pan-Asian Alliance"

An editorial in the Taipei Times titled, "Young alliance taking on Beijing," would claim: 

A “Milk Tea Alliance” among netizens in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and the Philippines emerged this spring, trolling China’s increasingly jingoistic online army that lashes out and threatens celebrities, multinationals and anyone else who directly or indirectly challenges Beijing’s “one China” mantra.

Like the Sunflower movement and pro-democracy supporters over the past year or more in Hong Kong, the alliance is self-initiated and spontaneous, interested in greater democracy in their own countries and others, as well as countering Beijing’s cudgel diplomacy, military assertiveness and regional ambitions, even if their own leaders are hesitant to do so.

Whether it is countering the CCP’s historical claims, China’s aggressive dam-building program that threatens those along the lower reaches of the Mekong River or Beijing militarizing the South China Sea, the power of the #MilkTeaAlliance is growing.

It is clearly false to portray this "alliance" as "self-initiated and spontaneous" with the summation of its agenda lifted directly from the US State Department's daily briefings and each respective opposition group that makes up the "alliance" having verified, documented ties directly to Washington.  

The regionwide network of political interference and regime change the US is creating in Asia today is not unlike the network it created and used to carry out the "Arab Spring" in 2011. 

Even the New York Times in its article, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings." The article would admit the role of organizations like NED in training, equipping, and funding protests that eventually led to regional death, despair, irreversible economic destruction, and enduring destabilization. 

The NYT would admit:

A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region, including the April 6 Youth Movement in Egypt, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and grass-roots activists like Entsar Qadhi, a youth leader in Yemen, received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.

It also noted: 

The Republican and Democratic institutes are loosely affiliated with the Republican and Democratic Parties. They were created by Congress and are financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which was set up in 1983 to channel grants for promoting democracy in developing nations. The National Endowment receives about $100 million annually from Congress. Freedom House also gets the bulk of its money from the American government, mainly from the State Department.

While the NYT claims this money was spent "promoting democracy" it clearly served as cover for what was in reality a violent campaign of US-backed regime change which culminated in multiple direct US military interventions, the destruction of Libya, and the near destruction of Syria. 

One thing that never materialized was "democracy." 

Also a product of the "Arab Spring" is US regime change efforts in Yemen and its military support for Saudi Arabia's ongoing war against the country. It has led to what the UN itself has called "the world's worst humanitarian crisis."

Considering what US "democracy promotion" has done to North Africa and the Middle East - wider Asia should take serious the threat the US is openly creating and aiming at the region in the form of its "Pan-Asian Alliance" and all the US government-funded opposition fronts that make it up.

Just as "democracy" was merely a slogan used to advance US primacy in North Africa and the Middle East during the "Arab Spring," "democracy" is just a slogan now in Asia used to advance Washington's real goal of encircling and containing China - thus preserving US primacy in Asia-Pacific.  

Fake Rights Group "Amnesty International" Openly Meddles in Thailand

A front used by the West to advance regime change and even promote wars around the globe under the guise of "humanitarian concern" rushes to aid of US-funded agitators in Thailand. 

September 4, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - ATN) - Amnesty International has openly interfered in Thailand's internal affairs - demanding that US-funded agitators arrested after blatantly violating their bail conditions to have all charges withdrawn.

The Bangkok Post would report in its article, "Amnesty International presses for dropping of charges against activists," that:

Amnesty International has called for the government to withdraw charges against anti-government protesters and asked its own supporters to send letters backing the demand to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.  

The statement said the charges, which included sedition, should be immediately dropped.

The protesters include middle-aged lawyer Anon Nampa of the US government-funded front "Thai Lawyers for Human Rights" (TLHR). TLHR was funded under their full name by the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 2014 - archived here - and continue to receive money through the Union for Civil Liberty - as seen on the US NED's own official website.

Amnesty International's involvement in Thailand's internal affairs and its rush to defend US-funded agitators is simply another set of foreign fingerprints left on the protests themselves. 

Anon Nampa and his organization are among ongoing anti-government protests' core leadership with the US-funded front providing legal aid, promoting protests, and providing other forms of material support.

READ MORE: The Complete Guide: US Government Role in Thailand's "Student Protests"

In other words - Anon Nampa - a foreign-funded agitator - is literally engaged in sedition - sedition that would not be tolerated in the US or UK from which Amnesty International is primarily based and from which it derives the majority of its funding and political backing.

Yet Amnesty - a foreign front - is directly interfering in Thailand's internal affairs in defense of agitators likewise funded by foreign interests - and demanding those engaged in sedition be granted impunity from the rule of law.

If this seems like advocating for criminality merely dressed up as "human rights advocacy," that's because it is.

Amnesty International Enables Crimes Against Humanity - Not Prevents Them 

Amnesty International is funded and directed by the worst human rights violators of the 21st century including the US and UK governments - who with the 2003 invasion of Iraq alone, based on lies that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" - killed a million people, displaced millions more, and have created chaos across the entire Middle East as a result.

Image: Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion. The West is guilty of the worst crimes against humanity of the 21st century. That Amnesty is based in the West and funded by their governments and corporate interests is the first clue that they merely hide behind human rights advocacy, rather than advance it. 

Amnesty International - taking funding from and helping enable the crimes of these Western governments - is merely a front advancing the policies of Western special interests under the guise of advocating for human rights.

It blatantly lies on its website claiming (emphasis added):

We neither seek nor accept any funds for human rights research from governments or political parties and we accept support only from businesses that have been carefully vetted.

By way of ethical fundraising leading to donations from individuals, we are able to stand firm and unwavering in our defence of universal and indivisible human rights. 

Yet throughout its various financial disclosures buried deep on its website, it is admittedly funded by both governments and political groups including corporate foundations run by convicted criminals.

In a 2010 disclosure (PDF) it admits (emphasis added):

The Directors are pleased to acknowledge the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Oak Foundation, Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Vanguard Charitable Endowment Programme, Mauro Tunes and American Jewish World Service. The UK Department for International Development (Governance and Transparency Fund) continued to fund a four year human rights education project in Africa. The European Commission (EuropeAid) generously awarded a multi-year grant towards Amnesty International’s human rights education work in Europe.

Open Society is founded by convicted financial criminal George Soros - who while attempting to appeal his conviction, used "human rights" as his defense for what was blatant insider trading.

The New York Times would admit in its article, "French court upholds Soros conviction," that: 

Ron Soffer, a lawyer for Soros, said the appeal would be to the Cour de Cassation, the highest French court. If that appeal fails, he said, Soros would go to the European Court of Justice, where he could argue that his rights to a speedy trial were violated because he was not charged until 2000, long after the trading in question.

Accepting money from a convicted criminal who openly attempted to use "human rights" to escape justice for blatant criminality is hardly "ethical fundraising." 

The UK Department for International Development and the European Commission both constitute government funding - meaning Amnesty International is further lying to the public about the nature of its funding. 

Amnesty International's leadership is also a story of corruption and conflicts of interest. 

Amnesty International Thailand's staff are openly biased and in favor of anti-government protests - exaggerating or fabricating abuses it claims the government is guilty of while omitting the violent background of the opposition.  

Amnesty International's US front was literally headed by personnel drawn from the US State Department including Suzanne Nossel who went from openly promoting US foreign policy at the State Department to doing so under the guise of advancing "human rights" at Amnesty International. 

Images: Suzanne Nossel went from the US State Department to working at Amnesty International. There is no mystery why Amnesty and the US State Department reflect the same agenda - including promoting war. 

Amnesty International has helped facilitate US-UK led wars in countries like Libya and Syria triggering humanitarian crises, the deaths of tens of thousands of people, and millions more displaced.

It was Amnesty International who helped spread lies about the initial protests of the so-called "Arab Spring" - now admittedly the work of US-engineered subversion according to the New York Times article, "U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings."

READ MORE: Lies Behind the "Humanitarian War" in Libya: There is No Evidence!

Not only did Amnesty International uncritically repeat the lies of US-backed opposition groups on the ground fabricating stories of government abuses while covering up the armed nature of the their own groups - it helped justify the escalation to the US-led wars that shortly followed.

In regards to Libya, Amnesty would specifically call for:

• Enact an arms embargo on Libya to prevent transfer of equipment and personnel.
• Freeze the assets of  Colonel al-Gaddafi and his senior military and security advisers.
• Make a clear statement that crimes under international law in Libya will be investigated and punished.
• Suspend Libya from the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council.
• Make a fact-finding mission to Libya to assess human rights abuses and whether a referral to the International Criminal Court is warranted.

These were precisely the same demands the US government and its European allies made - with Amnesty International legitimizing them under the guise of "humanitarian concerns." In reality, the US-led war in Libya was a cynical and long-desired regime change operation leading to the destruction of Libya and its descent into chaos and misery that endures to this day.

The initial "humanitarian concern" Amnesty International helped the US government sell was simply the latest version of "weapons of mass destruction" lies the US and its allies used to justify an otherwise unjust war of aggression.

Image: Under the guise of "humanitarian concern," Amnesty International helped the US sell its military intervention in Libya which eventually destroyed the entire nation, killed thousands, displaced millions, and has left it in chaos ever since. 

The link between both Amnesty International and interests driving US foreign policy are as overt as US State Department officials literally taking senior positions within Amnesty International itself - to Amnesty International making demands identical to those made by the US government and its allies leading to armed aggression.

Amnesty International's involvement in Thailand's internal affairs and its rush to defend US-funded agitators is simply another set of foreign fingerprints left on the protests themselves.

This should further undermine the legitimacy of the protests and have the Thai government - if not ban these foreign organizations altogether - revise NGO laws to clearly establish for the public who funds them, who they are funding inside of Thailand, and have "activists" and "journalists" receiving these funds re-register themselves as foreign agents and lobbyists.

Thus these organizations will still have the "freedom" to express themselves - but afford the Thai public the same transparency these organizations dishonestly demand of the Thai government while hypocritically failing to exhibit any transparency themselves.   

What is the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED)?

Who sits on the current NED board of directors and how do such people get away with claiming to promote democracy abroad when they are directly involved in circumventing it at home? 

August 14, 2020 (Tony Cartalucci - LD) - When US-backed regime change begins in a targeted nation, many - particularly those supporting protests - will deny the US is involved.

When US involvement is no longer deniable - many will finally admit it - but backpedal and claim there is nothing wrong with the US supporting "freedom" and "democracy" abroad.

With virtually every aspect of ongoing protests in Thailand funded by the US - from the leaders like Anon Nampa of the US government-funded "Thai Lawyers for Human Rights," to fronts like US government-funded iLaw petitioning to rewrite the Thai constitution, to media fronts like US government-funded Prachatai attempting to control the narrative regarding the protests - this process of denial and backpedaling has already begun.

The protests in Thailand are mainly funded through the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) with all of this funding appearing on the US NED's official website as well as in admissions from these groups themselves during previous interviews, and occasionally featured on their own websites when and if they make financial disclosures.

The NED and the fronts they are funding all claim to be promoting democracy. Others attempting to expose this funding claim it represents political interference and is a bad thing.

But what is the NED and how could the US promoting democracy be a bad thing?

It is Bad - Because the US NED Isn't Really Promoting Democracy 

The US has openly invaded nations, murdered sitting governments, killed hundreds of thousands of people in the process, before hand-picking favorable client regimes. The US NED is simply a subtler way of achieving regime change - but often also helps pave the way for destabilization leading to direct US military intervention as was the case during the 2011 "Arab Spring."

In fact, many of the people sitting on the US NED board of directors have signed their names to documents, op-eds, and essays calling for the invasion and regime change by force of other nations including Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya and Syria in 2011, and Ukraine in 2013-2014.

Some of them even participated directly.

This includes Neo-Conservatives like Elliot Abrams who is currently the US envoy to Iran after openly attempting to overthrow the government of Venezuela.


The London Guardian in an article titled, "US diplomat convicted over Iran-Contra appointed special envoy for Venezuela: Elliott Abrams, who was linked to failed coup against Chávez, to join Pompeo to urge security council to recognize Guaidó as head," would report (emphasis added):

Elliott Abrams was appointed US special envoy for Venezuela on Friday, as Donald Trump’s administration and European leaders on Saturday further increase the pressure on the socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, to step aside from leading the country he has taken into a deepening crisis. 

Abrams will accompany the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, to a meeting of the UN security council in New York on Saturday, during which Pompeo will urge members to join the US in declaring Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the legitimate head of state.

The  Guardian also notes (emphasis added):

Abrams is widely remembered in Central America, but particularly from his time in the Reagan administration, when he tried to whitewash a massacre of a thousand men, women and children by US-funded death squads in El Salvador, when he was assistant secretary of state for human rights.

CBS News in a much more recent August 2020 article, "Elliott Abrams, convicted of lying about Iran-Contra, named special representative for Iran," would report (emphasis added):

Brian Hook, the administration's special representative for Iran, is leaving and will be replaced by Elliott Abrams, convicted of misleading Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. Abrams, who has been serving as the special representative for Venezuela, will continue in that position in addition to his new role.

Anyone of good conscience approached by NED to join a board of directors including Elliot Abrams alone would be unable to reconcile what NED claims to stand for and what it - through leadership like Abrams - is actually doing.

But the NED board of directors includes many, many other characters with open ties to corrupt corporate-financier interests and proven track records of eagerly promoting war and enabling US-backed regime change around the globe.

This includes Victoria Nuland who played a key role in leading US regime change efforts in Ukraine in 2013-2014.
Reuters in its article, "Leaked audio reveals embarrassing U.S. exchange on Ukraine, EU," would admit (emphasis added):

A conversation between a State Department official and the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that was posted on YouTube revealed an embarrassing exchange on U.S. strategy for a political transition in that country, including a crude American swipe at the European Union. 

The article also admitted (emphasis added):

The audio clip, which was posted on Tuesday but gained wide circulation on Thursday, appears to show the official, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, weighing in on the make-up of the next Ukrainian government.

Nuland was also the CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) - a pro-war policy think tank funded by big-defense corporations including Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp - all alongside big-oil corporations like BP, Chevron, and Exxon - fronts posing as "liberal" and "opposed" to such interests including convicted financial criminal George Soros' Open Society Foundation - and big-banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. 

The security crisis US intervention in Ukraine created alone - and the subsequent deployment of US missiles to Europe made millions for CNAS sponsors Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. And while chaos NED director Victoria Nuland helped create is filling the accounts of US defense contractors - Ukraine remains an undemocratic, dysfunctional nation like all other targets of US regime change.

Another member of NED's board of directors is Neo-Conservative George Weigel - who like Elliot Abrams - is an enthusiastic supporter of US military aggression abroad and US-backed regime change.

Image: Just a little taste of what many NED board members lobbied for when promoting the US invasion and occupation of Iraq from 2003 onward. 

In American Magazine in a 2003 article titled, "The Just War Case for the War," Weigel would help repeat and amplify deliberate lies regarding "weapons of mass destruction" in an attempt to build justification for an otherwise unjust war.

Virtually every point Weigel made was built on deliberate lies - lies many attempted to expose before the 2003 invasion and lies now exposed to the world in the wake of the disastrous invasion and - nearly 2 decades later - an Iraq still laid waste, divided, and in chaos because of US aggression, its attempts to install a client regime, and its punitive military, political, and economic campaigns following its failure to do so.

And this is just a small sample of what sits on the NED's board of directors.

Pro-War Corporate Interests Using the Smokescreen of "Promoting Democracy"

The rest of the NED's board of directors is no better. 

There is Scott Carpenter - now at Google - who participated directly in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq as a member of the "Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq" from April 2003 to July 2004. He is also a member of the pro-war Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Image: Stefanik taking a victory lap as the gargantuan 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was signed into law. The US military might that law will help purchase is augmented by "soft power" wielded by organizations like the NED she chairs - used to undermine and weaken nations ahead of more "muscular" foreign policy options. 

NED board member and Congresswoman Elise Stefanik - Republican - belonged to the rabid pro-war Neo-Conservative Foreign Policy Initiative which played a key role in promoting conflict with Iran. She also participated in Defending Defense which lobbied to maintain Washington's astronomical defense budget.

US Senator Ben Sasse - Republican - is also an NED board member. He is openly anti-Chinese - blaming China for COVID-19 and praising Canada for the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.

 US Senator Tim Kaine - Republican - had been an advocate for much wider US military intervention in Syria including calls for a no-fly-zone. It is now revealed that Washington's so-called "freedom fighters" were in fact extremists fighting under the banners of terrorist organizations including Al Qaeda, its Syrian franchise Al Nusra, and even the self-proclaimed "Islamic State."

Ambassador Daniel Fried was one of the central architects of NATO's enlargement after the Cold War - a chief factor driving unprecedented US-Russian tensions today.

Image: Daniel Fried at the Atlantic Council - a corporate-funded think tank promoting NATO wars and the organization's overall enlargement and perpetuation. 

NED board member Michele Dunne is the director of Carnegie’s Middle East Program and the pro-war NATO-centric Atlantic Council - both funded by big-defense, big-oil, and big-banks.

Anne Applebaum of the Washington Post takes disinformation created by fronts funded by the US NED she chairs as a director and amplifies it in the columns of the Washington Post. She also is an adviser for the disinformation outlet Coda Story which serves as yet another element in Washington and Wall Street's echo chamber - buttressing narratives promoted by the NED and prominent papers like the Washington Post.

Andrew Card Jr. served in the administrations of George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr. He was US ambassador to Afghanistan, chairs the US Chamber of Commerce, and held various senior positions at General Motors and the Automobile Manufacturers Association which included GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Image: The US NED is either funded by or has board members representing the following corporate and government interests. 

Other board members including Kenneth Wollack, Melanne Verveer, Nadia Schadlow, and the above mentioned Victoria Nuland are also all members of pro-war corporate-financier funded policy think tanks including the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image: The Brookings Institution is just one of many US-based corporate-financier funded policy think tanks that engineer wars, coups, sanctions, and other forms of foreign policy abroad as well as pro-monopoly policies at home. Many of NED's board of directors are either members of Brookings or have been in the past. 

These policy think tanks short-circuit the democratic processes in the United States by funneling corporate money into the creation of policy, the mounting of lobbying campaigns for corporate-funded policy to be adopted into law by the US Congress, and the creation of media campaigns to sell these policies to a public that does not benefit from them and would otherwise oppose them.

Thus the vast majority of NED's board of directors are pro-war and represent the largest, most corrupt corporations in the United States - not to mention on Earth. They are involved in a process of denying the American people themselves of democracy at home - and so certainly are not involved in promoting genuine democracy abroad.

They are however, in great need of a smokescreen behind which to advance their agenda.

The National Endowment for Democracy is using the "promotion of democracy" as that smokescreen while engaged in political interference and regime change abroad in the pursuit of serving the corporate interests represented by the board of directors and those who fund NED directly.

For our example of Thailand - the US seeks to remove the current government and institutions from power and replace them with those beholden to Washington. This is part of a wider effort to remove pro-Beijing governments from across the region in a bid to isolate and contain China itself.

As mentioned - one US NED-funded front - iLaw - created a petition to rewrite Thailand's entire constitution. One can only imagine the backlash and response by the US should Russia or China fund organizations inside the US to call for the rewriting of the US Constitution.

The documented political interference carried out by NED against others is interference the US itself would never tolerate any nation imposing upon it. Such irony and hypocrisy is perhaps the best way of all to highlight just how dubious NED's work actually is.

The only way to claim the NED is engaged in supporting good around the globe is to completely ignore who funds it, who runs it, why, and what they've actually done and are currently doing. Or to ignore the fact that if any other nation did what the US NED does, inside the US, it would be considered an act of war. 

Western "Rights Advocates" Rush to Chechen "Activist's" Aid

April 7, 2019 (Gunnar Ulson - NEO) - Human Rights Watch (HRW) executive director Kenneth Roth recently decried legal proceedings against the alleged "leading human rights defender in Chechnya," Oyub Titiyev.

But as with much of what HRW decries, Titiyev has less to do with actually defending human rights, and more to do with ongoing US-subversion in Russia's southern Chechen Republic.

Roth, in a social media post, would claim:

The Russian government's "case" against the leading human rights defender in Chechnya, Oyub Titiyev, is farcical--as many holes as Swiss cheese--but authorities have still locked him up for 14 months and are threatening a four-year sentence.

The article Roth's post would include, leads to an opinion piece in The Moscow Times (written by fellow HRW regional director, Rachel Denber) who insists Titiyev is innocent of drug charges based entirely on Titiyev and his lawyer's own claims.

Whether Titiyev is guilty or not is for Russia's courts to decide. However, the entire process of mobilizing supposed human rights advocacy organizations like HRW to rush to Titiyev's aid illustrates how "rights advocacy" is transparently used to advance politically-motivated agendas, not to actually advance human rights.

No matter what the evidence against Titiyev, HRW and others would claim the charges against him were politically motivated. It is an example of foreign-funded organizations attempting to assert themselves over a nation's sovereign right to manage its own internal affairs, including by overriding local law enforcement and judicial processes.

But there is much more to consider regarding Titiyev's case than this.

Terrorism as Washington's Sword, "Rights Advocacy" as its Shield

Russia's Chechen Republic had previously seen two wars as armed separatists attempted to carve out an independent region from Russian territory. From 1994-1996 and again from 1999-2009 militants waged both open war and an armed insurgency against Russian forces until eventually Moscow prevailed.

Today, attempts to rekindle divisions, upheaval and even violence have been the primary goal of both US-funded and directed "rights advocates" like HRW and US-backed militants, though admittedly Russia now has the upper hand.

As the United States has been revealed to have done elsewhere, the Russian government has accused it of lending direct aid to Chechen militants.

A 2015 BBC article titled, "Russia's Putin: US agents gave direct help to Chechens," would note:

Vladimir Putin has accused US agents of directly aiding rebel fighters in the second Chechen war.   

In order for fighters to have contested Russian control over Chechnya, they would require equal or greater financial and military support than that committed by Moscow. State sponsorship would be the only way of achieving this and the list of potential states both capable and motivated to back Chechen militants is exceedingly short.


That the US and its partners now currently offer many of these same Chechen militants who have shifted their fighting over to Syria both weapons and financial backing is further evidence of Washington's deep commitment to menacing Russia and its interests both domestically and abroad with Chechen militancy.

US state sponsorship of Chechen militancy serves as the sword of Washington's policy, aimed at the Chechen Republic and anywhere else it feels it can wield it effectively (such as Syria).

And if the Chechen militancy is Washington's sword, US-backed "rights advocacy" is its shield.

So-called "human rights defenders" like Oyub Titiyev and the US-funded organizations he is a member of work to frustrate Russian efforts to root out extremism in the Chechen Republic.

Titiyev and others attempt to claim obvious counter-terror operations somehow violate human rights. His organization's work along with many others funded out of Washington D.C. is then used to place official pressure on Moscow to complicate counter-terror operations and undermine Russia's ability to maintain peace and stability in Chechnya.

Such organizations are used as a "shield" to protect militants from the full force of efforts undertaken to uproot them.

Oyub Titiyev is Funded by the US Government   

The Moscow Times' article cited by HRW's Kenneth Roth would make mention of at least one of the organizations Oyub Titiyev worked for, stating:

Titiyev has headed the office of the Russian human rights group Memorial in Grozny for nine years, collecting harrowing evidence of abuses and injustices committed by Chechen authorities.

Memorial, funded by the US government, is registered in Russia as a, "non-profit organization acting as a foreign agent." On Memorial's own website in a barely noticeable footnote at the very bottom of its website, it admits to its status as a foreign agent, but insists it is "self-governing," a claim made by many supposed nongovernmental organizations whose US government funding has been exposed.

Memorial no longer transparently discloses its funding, nor does the US National Endowment for Democracy which in 2011 had openly listed Memorial as one of their many grantees in Russia. Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth and Rachel Denber in her op-ed in The Moscow Times also omitted Memorial's US government-funding.

But under Memorial's own post on Titiyev's arrest, it would admit (emphasis added):

Titiev has worked at Memorial and its sister organization, Civic Assistance Committee, since 2000, documenting human rights violations and carrying out a range of humanitarian projects, including support to schools in Chechnya’s mountain areas.

The "Civic Assistance Committee" is also registered in Russia as a "non-profit organization acting as a foreign agent," and does list its foreign sponsors, which include the European Commission and George Soros' Open Society-funded Amnesty International. 

Had Human Rights Watch mentioned Titiyev's role as a foreign agent amid Russia's internal political affairs, or the fact that the people whose "rights" he was "defending" were terror suspects, their message would have failed to invoke sufficient public sympathy for Titiyev or public anger against the Russian government.

Sword and Shield Used Worldwide

Washington's use of Chechen terrorists to menace Russia along with dubious "rights advocates" like Titiyev and the US-funded fronts he works for protecting these terrorists from counter-terror operations represents a "sword and shield" method used extensively by Washington worldwide.

We can see examples of this in Syria where supposed US-backed "human rights activists" and "rescue workers" like the White Helmets embed with Al Qaeda and its many affiliates, working exclusively in territory occupied by terrorist organizations even listed by the US State Department itself as such.

US-armed terrorists used to overthrow the Libyan government in 2011 were likewise protected by extensive "human rights" networks set up by the US and Europe to portray militants as "pro-democracy activists." The efforts of these "human rights" networks were used by the US and its allies to justify airstrikes under the pretext of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine, also known as "R2P."

Just as a knight brings his sword and shield to whatever battlefield he fights upon, the United States brings its sword of state-sponsored terrorism and shield of "human rights advocacy" to every region and nation it seeks to undermine and eventually overthrow.

Oyub Titiyev's role in abusing human rights advocacy to frustrate state security services attempting to maintain peace and stability in Russia's Chechen Republic is just one of many hundreds of examples the US and its allies are using worldwide. By following characters like Kenneth Roth of HRW on social media, we can see several examples aired out per day, in numerous countries.

By understanding this tactic and exposing it, the blade of Washington's sword will grow dull, and cracks will begin to appear in its shield.

Gunnar Ulson, a New York-based geopolitical analyst and writer especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.