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Democracy building's institutional formation rests upon a reconfiguration of Cold War positions that retain, what Dr. Michael Pinto-Duschinsky termed 'such interference,'1 so as to continue subversive covert operations previously perpetrated by the CIA or MI6.

The NED was devised to eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities in the wake of Watergate and the Church Committee. According to William Blum it was a masterpiece 'of politics, of public relations, and of cynicism;' in effect, enabling the CIA to launder money through the NED.

Incensed by the duplicity of the NED's activities which now perpetuate the subversive activities of the CIA, a new foundation of progressive American scholars, lawyers and activists have started The International Endowment for Democracy (IED) 'dedicated to promoting real democracy in the country that needs it most, the U.S.A.'

Adverse criticism of the NED by other well-funded institutions certainly exists. Barbara Conry, foreign policy analyst at the right-libertarian Cato Institute, argued back in 1993, when the British WFD was being modelled on it, that the NED:

'...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.

... The Backlash Against Democracy Assistance, a 2006 report prepared by the NED for Senator Richard G. Lugar who is dumbfounded that all the US's largesse is rejected.

Many of the historic figures involved in the CIA's covert actions have, at some point, been members of the NED's Administrative Council, or of its board of directors: among them Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Henry Cisneros and Elliot Abrams. Currently it is presided over by Vin Weber, founder of the ultraconservative Empower America association and fundraiser for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush in the year 2000. Its executive director is Carl Gershman, a former Trotskyite responsible for the US Social Democrats and a member of the neo-conservative trend. Just how self-referential it all is can be indicated by: 'Unattributed quotes are taken from interviews conducted with NED and institute staffs.'19

The NED's attempts to explain away its covert aims are at times laughable ...

In his 2004 state of the Union address George W. Bush called for the doubling of the NED's budget, from $40 million to $80 million, with virtually all of the new funding going to the Middle East and Iraq in particular. Even before Bush's speech, the NED was already funding and setting up pro-US Iraqi organisations involved in polling, the media, civic education, and political party building.25 Of Europe's democracy assistance foundations, Germany's party-based groups still account for the lion's share of the combined annual budget with some €358 million from a combined annual budget of €400 million. Only seven foundations have an annual budget over €10 million and twelve get by on less than one million.26

Ultimately what these organisations represent is an expensive but precariously thin facade. The NED's defence of its deeds are a classic example of George Orwell's observation that political language is used largely in the defence of the indefensible.

Hugely wealthy endowments such as the NED gather together political and economic forces to impact upon what social researchers can say in respect of proposing policy solutions—and they seek to control even what is regarded as a policy solution. That so many supposedly independent researchers are part of the 'family' should not surprise us. In the US, the anti-democratic tendency goes hand in hand with the monopolistic or oligopolistic concentration of capital in the formation of 'public opinion'.

The Washington, D.C.-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) receives US$215,000.00 annually from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“The WUC manages to finance a staff, a very fancy website in English, and has a very close relation to the US Congress-funded NED. According to published reports by the NED itself, the World Uyghur Congress receives $215,000.00 annually from the National Endowment for Democracy for “human rights research and advocacy projects. The president of the WUC is an exile Uyghur who describes herself as a “laundress turned millionaire,” Rebiya Kadeer, who also serves as president of the Washington D.C.-based Uyghur American Association, another Uyghur human rights organization which receives significant funding from the US Government via the National Endowment for Democracy.

The NED was intimately involved in financial support to various organizations behind the Lhasa ”Crimson Revolution“ in March 2008, .....

Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in a published interview in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."”

This explains why the terror attacks in Xinjiang on 05 July 2009 bear so much similarity with those in Tibet in March 2008. The same masterminds and expertise were involved in both cases.

What happened in Tibet in March 2008 and Xinjiang in July 2009 is as much an act of terrorism as that in Mumbai in November 2008, apart from the terrorism philosophy, method, weapons used. The terrorism motivation is the same: the mass killing of innocent people for a political or religious objective.

Is Washington Playing a Deeper Game with China?

Jul 11, 2009 - 01:55 PM

By: F_William_Engdahl

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=11961

Up to date, however, the Obama Administration and its major allies have not attacked the Chinese government over the terror attack in Urumqi on 05/07/2009. This could indicate that President Obama may not wish his coming visit to China later this year be fouled up by this incident. The NED-supported Uyghur separatists could have acted on their own this time.