[R-G] The New York Times "Reports" On The National Endowment For Democracy

[Anthony Fenton]

The New York Times "Reports" On The National Endowment For Democracy
by Michael Barker
http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker06.html

     "Democracy cannot be exported or imposed, and the processes of  
self-liberation and empowerment central to democratic societies should  
be led by indigenous populations."
     —National Endowment for Democracy (2007)

(Swans - October 20, 2008)   The opening quote (or "fundamental  
principle") taken from the National Endowment for Democracy's 2007  
Strategy Document (pdf), represents a prime example of the world's  
leading democracy manipulators rhetorical cynicism. Despite describing  
themselves as "a private, nonprofit organization" dedicated to  
"strengthen[ing] democratic institutions around the world through  
nongovernmental efforts," the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)  
is in actuality a key instrument of the US government's imperial war  
chest.

Another "fundamental principle" allegedly guiding the work of the NED  
is that: "Democracy assistance is not an exercise in top-down social  
engineering." However, the honesty of this guiding principle is a  
little far-fetched given that the NED selects, supports, and sometimes  
helps create nongovernmental organizations operating in foreign  
countries, a process that could be perfectly well described as social  
engineering. To make things clearer, the NED's final fundamental  
principle states that: "In carrying out its mission of promoting  
democracy, NED advances the American national interest and embodies  
America's highest ideals." Thus we might say that the NED exports the  
US's special brand of neoliberal "democracy" by engaging in foreign  
social engineering, and so its activities might better be described as  
those of an imperial democracy manipulator.

Of course Democrats are as much a part of the activities of the NED as  
are the Republicans, (1) although the NED doesn't seem to understand  
this, as they describe the board of directors which govern their  
activities as independent and nonpartisan. Yet the classifiers  
independent and nonpartisan are hardly words that come to mind when  
one reviews their board, perhaps capitalist neoliberal ideologues  
might provide a more accurate descriptor. Here it is useful to briefly  
review the backgrounds of some of the NED's principle officers.

NED Board Chair Vin Weber was a member of the neoconservative Project  
for a New American Century (PNAC), and in the lead-up to the war --  
rather, illegal destruction wrought -- on Iraq, played a key role in a  
PNAC subsidiary, a group called Americans for Victory Over Terrorism.  
Next up, the vice-chair of the NED's board is Missouri Democrat Dick  
Gephardt, while their president (since 1984) has been Carl Gershman,  
an individual who formerly served as the executive director of Social  
Democrats USA. Finally, the NED's secretary is Jean Bethke Elshtain, a  
scholar whose role at the NED is particularly interesting as she also  
serves on the editorial advisory board of the academic journal, Peace  
Review: A Journal of Social Justice. Moreover, in February 2002, as  
Edward S. Herman and David Peterson point out in their excellent  
article There Is No "War on Terror", the Institute for American Values  
(which was and is presently chaired by Jean Bethke Elshtain)  
categorically declared the war on terror a "just war." Strange values  
indeed!

Needless to say, the US mainstream media rarely draws attention to the  
NED's democracy manipulating activities, despite the fact that the NED  
has played an integral part in their government's foreign policy  
apparatus since its birth in 1983. (2) Yet at the same time some parts  
of the mainstream media, have occasionally provided useful, albeit  
decontextualized, information on the NED's operations. Thus this  
article will provide the first critical investigation of the US  
media's portrayal of the NED by reviewing the coverage of it work in  
the United States' "paper of record" The New York Times.

[...]

http://www.swans.com/library/art14/barker06.html