Human Rights NGOs: Intelligence ‘Assets Of Control’ – OpEd
Masquerading behind a banner of “human rights groups” or “non-governmental organizations” (NGOs), lie political provocateurs. These “wolves in sheep’s clothing” are key performers through which Western political propaganda is disseminated, dissidents are intimidated and civil society is undermined. They function as “assets of control” through which some voices are heard while others are either censored or silenced.
The collaboration between NGOs and intelligence services is an open secret. The Daily Sabah reported (2018) that in 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. Agency for International Development official, launched a social media messaging network in Cuba called ZunZuneo resembling Twitter. It was used by hundreds of thousands of Cubans without being aware of the project’s real aim – collecting data (i.e. spying) on Cuban citizens.
Although we will talk more about this particular NGO later, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), funded by the U.S. Congress has played a key, dual NGO-CIA role since the 1980s. According to investigative reporter Robert Parry in Consortium News, “NED took over the CIA’s role of influencing electoral outcomes and destabilizing governments that got in the way of U.S. interests.” He also claimed that the NED is a sort of slush fund for neocons and other favored U.S. foreign policy operatives.
Moreover, Parry writes again July 30, 2015, in Consortium News, “The Washington Post blasted Vladimir Putin for shutting down the National Endowment for Democracy in Russia, but left out NED’s U.S. government funding, its quasi-C.I.A. role, and its regime change aim in Moscow, July 30, 2015.”
Then, of course, there is Stratfor which may be the most notable NGO, called a shadow CIA by Helsinki Times as far back as 2012. Stratfor is a tool that collects information from independent sources and helps pro-American groups in other countries to get organized against foreign governments.
Much of the problem with covert CIA-backed NGO operations on behalf of America dates from the 1980s, but it was the Reagan doctrine in particular that exacerbated the concerns with “human rights NGOs.” The doctrine advocated the need to provide both overt and covert CIA support to anti-communist movements. NGOs as assets of the CIA played a major role in these efforts.
The latter were financed by the government and staffed by people with ties to Western intelligence agencies. The intent was to ensure civil society would not deviate significantly from government policies. Noam Chomsky and Ed Hermann had a name for it – “manufactured consent.” And their 1988 seminal work on propaganda, Manufacturing Consent, remains required reading for those wishing to know that (or when) their Constitutional rights are being lifted from them – and that the only voice they hear is that of the government or its agent provocateurs.
The ability of dissidents, academics and whistleblowers to speak openly and with integrity is curbed by these “assets of control.” Today, NGOs limit alternative views in or out of public discourse regarding the war in Ukraine. Outlook India, reports “Ukraine War: Western Media Coverage Often Not In Context, Occasionally Tinged With Racist Bias.” Well-documented and demonstrated facts critical to understanding the conflict are conveniently not reported in the Western press. Any attempt to redress misstatements by the media are confronted with vague accusations of being “unpatriotic” or worse, “traitor,” transgressions that must be punished with intimidation, censorship, and/or cancellation.
These “human rights NGOs” are, ostensibly, devoted primarily to addressing alleged abuses in Asia and the East (the West of course gives the impression that such does not exist in its domain). Consequently, all geopolitical power issues are framed through a Western lens as a competition between good and bad (sometimes even evil). Creating “strawman stereotypes” to differentiate the good “us” vs the evil “them” portrayed as a conflict between good and evil is a critical element in “manufacturing consent.” Furthermore, these “NGOs” rest on the source credibility of being “non-governmental” and devoted to “human rights.” This provides cover for their nefarious behavior while increasing the credibility and thus effectiveness of their messaging.
As long as we permit the world to be viewed (on either side) through the lens of propaganda (as a struggle between good and evil), mutual understanding and compromise become euphemisms, equivalent to appeasement. This means peace is only to be achieved by defeating one’s enemies. Thus, these “human rights NGOs” agitate for confrontation and escalation against whoever is the most recent reincarnation of Hitler, while those advocating for diplomacy and reason are denounced and censored as traitors.
“Human Rights NGOs” Undermine Civil Society
With the advent of the Cold War, the US intelligence community had, for several decades, a significant impact on civil society in Europe. Its maneuvering became extensive and their activities were made an issue by some European states. A decision was made to deal with the problem through surveillance (i.e. spying) in the open.
It was the Reagan Doctrine that instituted establishing NGOs that would openly interfere in other nations social and political affairs behind the banner of protecting human rights. These facts are undisputed and the US’s well-documented goal was to cloak (under cover of human rights protection) influence operations by US intelligence. The NGOs are largely funded by states and staffed with people connected to the intelligence community.
Consider the following documented occurrence: the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine (2004), witnessed and documented an anti-corruption protest transformed into a pro-NATO/anti-Russian government demonstration. The director of the influential NGO ‘Freedom House in Ukraine’ at the time, was the former Director of the CIA.
The premier NGO of US intelligence dating back, again, to the Reagan era was establishment of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The Washington Post called NED the “sugar daddy of overt operations” and “what used to be called ‘propaganda’ can now simply be called ‘information’.”
Documents released reveal that NED cooperated closely with CIA propaganda initiatives. Allen Weinstein, a cofounder of NED, acknowledged: “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” Philip Agee, a CIA whistle-blower, explained that NED was established as a “propaganda and inducement program” to subvert foreign nations and style it as a democracy promotion initiative.
“Human rights NGOs” enable the voice of a Western-backed minority to overwhelm a silent majority, and characterize it as a struggle for “self-determination” or “democracy.” Protests can therefore “legitimize” the overthrow of democratically elected governments. The Guardian referred to the Ukrainian “Orange Revolution” in 2004 as “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing” for the purpose of “winning other people’s elections.” Another article by the Guardian labeled the Orange Revolution a “postmodern coup d’état” and a “CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days, adapted to post-Soviet conditions.”
Thus, a similar regime-change operation was repeated in Ukraine in 2014 to mobilize Ukrainian civil society against their government, resulting in overthrowing the democratically elected government against the will of the majority of Ukrainians. The NGOs branded it a “democratic revolution” and was followed by Washington asserting its dominance over key levers of power in Kiev.
Similar operations were also launched against Georgia. NGOs staged Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” in 2003 which eventually resulted in war with Russia after the new authorities in Tbilisi attacked South Ossetia. Recently, the Prime Minister of Georgia cautioned that the US was yet again using NGOs in an effort to topple the government to use his country as a second front against Russia.
Mistakes Made
In the 19th century social, economic and political mistakes were made in the West. For decades, politicians and economists held that the free market was the primary mechanism through which the people could protect themselves from government coercion – the power of the purse. Yet, as immense power concentrated in large industries in the late 19th century, modern liberals looked to the government as an ally to limit the power of large corporations. That idea was both naive and terribly shortsighted.
Government and corporate interests are more and more seamless in their efforts to cooperate and often collaborate towards mutual ends. This, as we have experienced, is only magnified with the advance of technology and growth of tech behemoths.
Civil society, therefore, will continue to find it increasingly more difficult to operate independent from the pressures and influences brought to bear on it. Foreign intelligences and their NGO “agents of control” remain a formidable force with which to reckon – just ask the people of the Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia…shall I go on?